Google announces new Assistant voices, Gemini-powered improvements for Google Home
Earlier today, Google announced the successor to the awkwardly named Chromecast with Google TV - the somewhat less awkwardly named Google TV Streamer. Alongside this, the company also unveiled that Google Home is getting Geminified in the near future, because of course it is.
Gemini will be used to analyze your Nest's camera feed and, "over time" (whatever that means) it will go from "understanding" a narrow set of specific things like motion, people, and packages, to being able to "more broadly understand what it sees and hears, and then surface what's most important".
Google says this means that in the future, at some point, the camera won't just understand that it sees an animal, but that "the dog is digging in the garden", things like that. Such descriptions will make your camera clips in the Google Home app "far more useful".
You will also be able to use the new camera activity search to find exactly what you want. The example given is "did the kids leave their bikes in the driveway?" but of course this can in theory apply to anything. Google Home "can search through your camera history, giving you a list of only the relevant events and a helpful summary", and "the sky's the limit for what you can ask". "This will be a monumental shift for Nest cameras and will transform how you get help in your home", Google says.
Gemini will also be used to take the complexity out of creating automations for your smart home. A new Help me create feature in the Google Home app will let you describe what you want in plain language, and then Gemini will set that up for you. You can say things like "lock the doors and turn off all the lights at bedtime" and an automation for that will be seamlessly created.
And even if you don't have an exact automation in mind, Gemini can still help by suggesting actions based on what's possible with your devices.
"Later this year" you can also expect an improved Google Assistant on your Nest speakers and displays, with new voices including the one demoed below. It will be "more natural and helpful for everyone in your home". It will "better understand you", allowing you to chat more naturally and easily go back and forth and ask follow-up questions. This new Assistant will tap into Gemini's generative capabilities to help even more.
Google will roll these features out "to a limited number of Nest Aware subscribers who are in Public Preview later this year". Everyone else still has a lot of waiting to do.