Google will need more than just a Gemini for Home patch to revive its Nest smart speakers and compete with Amazon Echo’s better hardware.
Google Nest speakers are neat little utility tools that let you holler at Google Assistant anywhere in the house — add something to your shopping list before it slips your mind or run the Roomba in a certain room. They’re so handy that a lot of us just grab Nest Minis by the dozen and place them across our homes so that we can call Assistant from literally anywhere.
However, Google’s home efforts have been stagnant for a few years, to the point where they’ve clearly fallen behind their main rival: Amazon’s Alexa. Now, Google is trying to give the lineup a new lease of life with its latest AI avatar, Gemini. But the question is: after so many years of neglect, is this enough? Can Gemini patch the wrongs Google has done to its Nest speakers?Assistant out, Gemini in
For the past few months, Google has been pushing Assistant into the back seat. Taking its place is the flashy new Gemini, with all its pizzazz and flair — more humane (heh!) and no longer requiring you to phrase queries like a robot (heh heh!). Google has been replacing Assistant with Gemini pretty much everywhere: our phones, our cars, our smartwatches, and now, our smart home devices.
Google hasn’t gone into detail about what to expect from Gemini for Home, but the stress on ‘Home’ in the name suggests it’s tuned to handle smart home requirements and commands — unlike the current Gemini on Android phones, which either falls flat or leans on Assistant’s old-age wisdom to get tasks done.Gemini could indeed spruce things up
Let me be clear: I’m genuinely excited about smart home speakers finally getting AI chatbots in a modern avatar. It’ll be so much easier to just tell Gemini what to do in whatever broken, mixed-language jumble comes to mind, and it’ll interpret it correctly.
