Just a day after the new AI -powered Echo devices were launched, Google made the debut of the renewed series of Google Home and Nest devices, designed to present AI Assistant Gemini AI. The company also took the wrappers from the refurbished Google Home software platform and its new business strategy for the AI era.
While the company is still planning to compete in the material, it also wants to make twins accessible to other manufacturers and businesses. It is similar to how Google offers its own Android devices with the Pixel line, but it allows other companies that make products compatible with the Google platform to create their own Android smartphones with different form factors and price points.
“We will create flagship material in some categories where we believe there is a lot of room to present innovation and promote the limits of what is possible with Gemini,” said Anish Kattukaran, head of products on Google Home and Nest, in a press briefing before Wednesday’s announcement. “And then we will fill in this with the second part, that is, we do not believe that Gemini should be limited to a set of devices by an OEM, to a set of points of prices that may make it accessible or inaccessible to a particular group of people,” he said.
To prove what this means, Google presented a revised series of nesting devices, including Nest Cam Outdoor, Nest Cam Indoor and Nest Roard, which exploit the Gemini. It also matters an upgraded version of the Google Home speaker, released in the spring of 2026, as well as a camera and a low -cost bell sold in collaboration with Walmart.
However, the company decided to bring Gemini first to its existing device owners, provided they have certain material capabilities, such as sufficient processing power. (See the list below.)
This approach is deliberate. Google does not want to demand people to buy new devices to access its AI power when it already has more than 800 million devices in its ecosystem – both its own and from third parties. These devices are connected through Google’s Cloud-To-Cloud APIS And Smart Home Standard MaterialA protocol of the industry that allows devices from different manufacturers to work together.
In addition, the company takes time to test Gemini’s features and performance with existing customers before starting new flagship devices, such as the upgraded Google Home Smart Speaker released next year.
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Meanwhile, Google offers the “Collaborates with Google Home Partners”A tool for the manufacture of AI camera, a new reference material design, recommendations for-on-chips (Socs, main processors that feed smart devices), a new SDK incorporated by Google camera and much more.
Walmart is Google’s first partner and launches an affordable internal camera and bell under the retailer’s brand.
Talk to your house
With Gemini, the idea is to offer devices with AI that you can discuss in more natural ways, whether it is interrupted or adds details after an initial research or asking more complicated questions.
For example, if you said, “Play this song from the movie with Ben Affleck where he is in a rocket and goes to like an asteroid or something,” the device could play an Aerosmith song from the movie “Armageddon”. As music flows, you could ask what the lyrics mean and when it is over, you could ask for other songs with a similar theme.
You could also ask for a podcast with a particular person without having to remember the name of the demonstration or episode. Or you could ask Gemini to make an interactive sleep story about children where they help create characters.
In terms of household coordination, Gemini will be able to handle things such as calendars, lists, timers, reminders and other things that make your life easier at home.
For example, instead of telling the smart speaker to add individual recipe ingredients to a shopping list, you could just say that you want to make “Pad Thai vegetarians” and Gemini can respond with something like “for how many people?” If you haven’t started a shopping list, then it will make you one for you with the right amount of ingredients.
Another example is that instead of asking the smart device to set a timer for a specific period of time, you could say, “We are stinging the eggs. Can you set a timer?” Gemini can then ask if you want hard boiling or soft boiling, then adjust the timer based on your answer.
In addition, users should not remember the names of their various smart home appliances. This means that you could sit in your bedroom and tell the Gemini that “you are going to cook” and “activate the lights”, and the AI understands that you want to activate the lights in the kitchen.
You can also make chain commands such as asking the device to turn off the lights, adjust the thermostat and start the roomba, all at the same time. Or you can ask for exceptions like “Disable all lights but leave the lights of my office”.
For cameras and bells, Gemini can better understand what they see, so that instead of a stream of dozens of notifications, you can get a summary of events or the main events that really matter.
Gemini will also help more people benefit from more complex features, such as predetermined routines that automatically control many devices or better understand their energy use by asking questions.
And instead of manually configuring automation, you could ask Gemini through a new “Ask Home” feature for what you want to do and get useful suggestions and help. For example, you could ask how you could feel safer at home and may suggest an automation arrangement at home when you are only at home or one that simulates your presence when you are out of the city. If it is what you wanted, Gemini can adjust it.
All of this is controlled through a redesigned version of the Google Home app, which is now faster, more stable and powered by Gemini AI.
In the application, Gemini will offer descriptions of the events and activities identified by your cameras, summarize the activities of the day, direct you to a clip when you ask much more. (Some features require a Google Home Premium subscription. More about it here, see chart below.)
In addition to AI -working features, you can also chat in a free flow conversation with Gemini Live by saying to your smart device, “hey, google, let’s talk”. This will start a back and rear conversation where you do not need to view your requests by saying “hey, google” again and again.
This allows you to have a more natural conversation, where you can ask complicated questions, to stun with an AI partner, have AI creates creative ideas and much more.
For the time being, Gemini Live is one way the devices offer, but Kattukaran believes that, in the future, this interlocutory approach will be “all experience”.
“I am so refreshing in this experience that the de facto thing becomes,” he says.
“Between a more assistant conversation, Gemini Live, access to endless information and creativity,” Ask Home ” – all that converge together – is really the foundation we lay in place,” says Kattukaran. “We are starting to make this promise of a home that can really see, listen, understand and finally act on your behalf to make your life a little easier in smaller ways so you can go and spend time for the things you really care about.”
Updating the Google Home app is released today on timely access. Nest and Walmart devices are now becoming available, but Google’s new speakers begins in the spring of 2026. Specifications for manufacturers are available through Google Home developer website.
