Google Home gets massive AI update with new Nest Cams, Home Speaker

Google finally pulled the wraps off its anticipated AI overhaul of smart home products. In short, the search giant is integrating Gemini and AI features throughout several aspects of its smart home platform, including both new and existing devices.

The Gemini for Home improvements will roll out to nearly every smart speaker, display, camera, and doorbell that Google has made in the last decade, with some exceptions. (One of the more notable exceptions is the Pixel Tablet, which won’t be getting Gemini for Home yet.) Moreover, not every device will get all the features. Google highlighted Gemini Live as one that will have limited availability since it’s more demanding and can’t run on all hardware.

Alongside the new features, which I detail below, Google is launching a new home subscription called Google Home Premium. Many of the new AI features will require the subscription, which costs $13/mo for the standard plan or $26/mo for the advanced plan.

There are a ton of new features, improvements, devices, and more coming to Google Home, so read on for all the new details.

Gemini in Google Home

First and foremost, Google is infusing its Gemini generative AI into its various existing and upcoming smart devices. The search giant says Gemini will replace Google Assistant and improve the smart home experience.

Google touts the Gemini upgrade as making things more conversational. With Google Assistant, people had to interact with smart home devices in a very rigid way, often by speaking specific commands to get desired results. However, with Gemini for Home, Google claims interactions will be more natural and conversational.

In one example, the company shared, a person told Gemini that their dishwasher wasn’t draining properly and asked what they should check first. Gemini suggested looking at the filter, and then the person replied, “The filter looks good, what should I check next?” They didn’t need to repeat the context of the dishwasher not draining because Gemini was able to retain that and continue answering related questions.

However, Google says these natural interactions extend beyond just questions and should simplify most interactions with Google Home devices. The search giant said Gemini can understand vague requests, such as asking it to “play that song from the climactic scene where they are dancing at a summer camp.”

It also claimed people could skip certain busy work and go straight to the desired end result. For example, instead of researching recipes and then asking Google Assistant to add certain ingredients to your grocery list, Google claims you can just ask Gemini to “add ingredients for Pad Thai to my shopping list,” and it will do the recipe researching on your behalf. In another example, Google said people could ask things like “set a timer to cook a ribeye steak,” and Gemini will “figure it out.”

Gemini’s natural language capabilities should help simplify commands related to smart devices like lights. Instead of needing to know specific device names, Google says that Gemini can understand context and act accordingly. For example, asking Gemini to turn on the lights because you want to cook should result in the kitchen lights turning on.

Other natural language improvements include creating automations simply by describing them, as well as the ability to ask analytical questions, such as asking how much time people spent watching TV or how often the AC ran over the last week. These features require Google Home Premium.

This all sounds great, but I need to see it in action first. I have a suspicion that none of this will work quite as smoothly as Google claims, especially given generative AI’s tendency to make stuff up.

Furthering the conversational narrative, Google is also bringing Gemini Live to smart devices. Users can say “Hey Google, let’s chat” to start a continuous conversation with Gemini Live, which removes the need to say the Hey Google hotword, though this is limited to those who pay for a Google Home Premium subscription.

Forget smart cameras, Google is pitching AI cameras

Google’s Nest cameras are getting Gemini upgrades as well. The search giant says Gemini for Home will better understand what cameras capture and offer improved alerts.

AI-generated alerts will now appear directly in alert notifications and in the camera video history, which should mean people see fewer, less useful alerts like ‘motion detected’ and instead get more specific details, such as that a delivery is arriving or a shadow is moving. This change should make it easier for people to see what needs their attention and what they can ignore.

In a similar vein, Google announced ‘Home Brief,’ which can automatically identify a day’s important events and summarize hours of camera footage to make it easier to catch up on things.

Gemini should also improve the ability to find things through ‘Ask Home,’ which enables people to search through days of video footage with natural language.

All of these new features are tied to the Google Home Premium subscription.

Google Home Premium Subscription

Google’s new subscription comes in two options with varying features between them. Here’s what you get:

Standard ($13/mo)

• 30 days of event-based video history.
• Intelligent alerts.
• Gemini for Home.
• Help me create (natural language home automations).

Advanced ($26/mo)

• Everything in Standard.
• 60 days of event-based video history.
• 10 days of 24/7 video history.
• Descriptive notifications (more detailed alerts).
• Search video history.
• Event descriptions.
• Daily summaries.

New Home Speaker, Nest Cams, and more

While most of Google’s existing smart home hardware will benefit from the Gemini upgrades, the company is also launching new devices with “Gemini-first hardware.” This includes three new Nest cameras and a new Google Home Speaker. There are also some Onn-branded devices that are launching at Walmart exclusively in the U.S., but since Canadians can’t get them, I’m going to leave them out of this section.

Starting with the Nest cameras, there are new Indoor, Outdoor, and Doorbell models. All of them support higher resolution 2K HDR video, with DXOMARK ranking all three cameras as first-in-class for image quality. Google upgraded the Nest Cams with wider 152-degree diagonal views, while the Doorbell boasts a 1:1 aspect ratio and a 166-degree diagonal view. Further, the cameras sport improved low-light performance.

The new Nest Cams will be available starting October 1 on the Google Store and at major retailers, with Canadian pricing listed below:

• Nest Cam Indoor (wired, 3rd gen) – $129.99
• Nest Cam Outdoor (wired, 2nd gen) – $199.99 (1pk) / $339.99 (2pk)
• Nest Doorbell (wired, 3rd gen) – $239.99

As for the new Google Home Speaker, we’ll start with the bad news. It’s not available yet and won’t be until March 2026. When it does launch, it will cost $139.99 in Canada. Google said it’s intentionally holding back the new Home Speaker until next year while it focuses on rolling out Gemini for Home.

The new Home Speaker sports a new design and four new colours, Porcelain, Hazel, Jade, and Berry. The new design includes a light ring that offers visual feedback when interacting with Gemini. The speaker features new 360-degree audio and the ability to pair two speakers together with a Google TV Streamer for a cinematic surround-sound experience.

Upgraded Google Home app

Finally, Google detailed upgrades coming to the Home app. The search giant said it rebuilt the app from the ground up to make it faster and more reliable. On some Android devices, it’s as much as 70 per cent faster, and crashes have been reduced by nearly 80 per cent. The Home app also now includes the best features from the Nest app, enabling a unified smart home app experience.

The redesign simplifies the app’s layout into three tabs. The Home tab features an overview of the home and multiple pages for different devices, like favourites. Plus, Google added several gestures to speed up single-handed navigation.

Next, the Activity tab is the main view for the history of events in the home, as well as the new Home Brief feature.

Finally, there’s the Automations tab, with an entirely rebuilt editor for automations and more.

Wrapping up the app updates is the new ‘Ask Home’ search bar that lives at the top of the Home app (at least, for Home Premium subscribers). It gives fast search access to tons of things, such as searching for specific devices, rooms, camera events and more.

When can you get all this new stuff?

All of the new hardware will be available starting October 1 in Canada (except the Home Speaker, which is coming in March 2026). The software, however, is a different story.

Early access for the new software features and app starts in October. Google says speakers and smart displays will start getting access towards the end of the month.

The company also shared steps people can take to be among the first to try it:

• Open the Google Home app (version 4.0 or higher).
• Click your profile icon in the top right, then Home Settings.
• Scroll to and select Early access to join.
• The Home app will notify you when the new features are ready to try.

Images credit: Google