Google’s AI helper seems to be everywhere on our gadgets these days, and beginning next month, it may even be in your house.
“Gemini is coming to Google Home,” the firm hinted in a Tuesday post on X, and encouraged us to.
This has been in the works for some time, as the firm unveiled Gemini for Home during its Made by Google event in August along with a number of other product announcements.
The security camera may be getting a makeover, since the teaser for Tuesday’s X post seems to include a picture of a Nest camera, which Google last updated four years ago. A new Nest doorbell and speaker with support for 2K cameras may also be unveiled on October 1.
A request for comment from CNET was not immediately answered by Google.
Jason Howell, a former CNET employee and co-host of the Android Faithful podcast, is “optimistic” about Gemini taking the place of Assistant in Google’s smart home devices.
“In recent years, I have witnessed my Google Home devices degrading in quality and becoming far less useful for even simple tasks and questions,” Howell told CNET. “They’ve become buggy and unreliable to the point where I’ve stopped interacting with them for most things.”
Red-handed capture of a dog by Gemini
Howell was pleased with Gemini’s smart home camera performance during the Mobile World Congress trade expo in Barcelona earlier this year.
“A smart home camera detected a dog that came into the kitchen to steal a cookie off the counter,” says Howell. Through voice interaction, the homeowner may ask the system what happened to the cookie. The system might then inform the homeowner that the dog was the culprit based on the context of the camera’s footage and its knowledge of what it observed.
“This sort of example empowers users to spend less time looking for answers in lieu of simple voice queries that serve them the answer they are looking for with less effort and less time spent.”
Last month, Google said that Gemini for Home would ultimately take the role of Google Assistant in its line of smart home appliances. Gemini will still be activated by saying “Hey Google,” but the sophisticated AI technology will be better equipped to understand more intricate and subtle queries and directions.
“Hey Google, what quick pasta dish can I cook in less than an hour?” is a possible response if you’re having trouble coming up with a supper idea. or just, “Give me a recipe for Caesar salad.” Since Gemini is also designed to operate with smart lighting and thermostats, you might instruct it to “turn off all the lights except in the kitchen” and “turn the temperature to 68 degrees.”
Grand View Research projects that during the next five years, the market for smart home technologies will expand by 23%.