The Google Home experience brings a lot to the table, but it’s also infamously overlooked some features that have taken years to address. As more updates continue to improve on what Google Home can do, what do you want to see next?
This week, Google Home’s latest update started rolling out to address a couple of long-standing complaints.
For one, Nest owners should finally stop seeing that annoying message saying that their video “isn’t available yet” after tapping on a notification. This is a problem that has plagued Home for years, and at times made Google’s smart cameras feel worthless for their main purpose – security.
Google says that its latest Home updates include a “foundational fix” for this problem. While it’s never been a consistent-enough problem to see right away if the fix truly works, improvements have been long overdue. As someone with the better part of a dozen Nest cameras around my home, I’m thrilled to see this finally happening. I’d say it’s the cherry on top of many Nest Cam improvements in the past couple of years, but realistically, most of those “improvements” should have been there from the get-go.
In other news, this latest Google Home update continues to invest in automations, with the big news being the addition of smart buttons as triggers.
Finally!
While voice and app controls are the backbone of the smart home, nothing can truly ever replace a physical control, and that’s why it’s really nice Google Home is finally supporting buttons. It’s been a little rocky to start as some don’t work as they’re supposed to, but like the Nest fix, this has been a long time coming. Compared to the likes of Alexa, SmartThings, and Home Assistant, this was a gaping hole in Home’s automation ambitions.
So what’s next?
For me, I feel like most of the big issues I’ve had with Home over the years have been addressed at this point. Nest Cams work really well nowadays, the Gemini additions have been solid, and automations continue to get more useful. There are plenty of little nitpicks that could use a fix, like that offline lights bug Google said it would patch, but there aren’t many “big” features I want – at least ones that could reasonably happen. I’d love to see Google offer a true local storage and streaming option for cameras in Home, including Nest Cam, but that’s not going to happen for obvious reasons. Right now, my biggest asks really come down to hardware, as the wait for Google’s next era of smart speakers and displays sits just out of reach.
