Gemini for Home isn’t enough to revive Google’s forgotten Nest speakers

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?

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.

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. My mum won’t have to memorize set phrases in a language she doesn’t fully understand just to set the room temperature.

Thanks to years of neglect, Assistant on Google Home and Nest speakers has taken a nosedive in listening capability and quality of responses. It often misheard me or replied to things I never even asked. With Gemini coming to smart speakers, it finally feels like Google is paying attention again, and just maybe these issues will be a thing of the past.

But this software upcycling alone isn’t enough to revive a product category that’s already gasping for air.

A lot of the problems with Nest speakers go beyond software. The last Nest device we saw was the second-gen Nest Hub back in 2021. The cheapest Nest Mini hasn’t been updated since 2019! Sure, smart speakers aren’t as hot as new Pixels, but they still deserve new iterations — at least one in six years, right?

The counterargument is that since AI models run in the cloud, hardware doesn’t matter as much. Fair point — that’s exactly why Google is even able to bring Gemini to older models. But there’s only so much $50 hardware can handle after half a decade, especially in the fast-moving tech world. Compare the Nest Mini with the latest Echo Dot and you’ll immediately see the difference; I’d even suggest the Echo Dot over the Nest Mini if you’re not already locked into Google’s ecosystem.

Google’s the rabbit that keeps getting distracted along the way, while Amazon has been the steady tortoise, marching ahead at a slow but consistent pace. And right now, it looks like the tortoise is winning — unless Gemini really proves to be a trump card.

Put the Google Nest Mini against the latest Echo Dot, and Amazon’s lead becomes obvious. The Echo Dot has a built-in temperature sensor you can use for routines like lowering the thermostat when the room reaches a certain temperature. It even has spatial awareness to take actions depending on people’s presence in the room. Some Echo models even have a digital clock on the face, doubling up as a handy nightstand device.

None of that exists on Google’s side. The Nest Mini is still stuck with two aging microphones that no longer do a great job of picking up your voice, no matter how much computational correction Google deploys. I’m not sure Gemini can fix that hardware deficiency. Worse still is that Google has stopped selling Nest speakers in major markets (they’re no longer available here in India, for instance), while Amazon’s entire Echo lineup remains readily available.

Google has confirmed that Gemini for Home is arriving on October 1, and you can sign up to get an update as soon as it’s available for you. Since Google earlier said that the October release would be an early access phase, Gemini will roll out to existing hardware first during the test phase and likely to a limited set of users. Still, it makes me hopeful that once Gemini’s full Home experience is ready (read: when Google finally starts forcing Gemini and retires Assistant on Nest speakers), new hardware will arrive too.

I want a new Nest Mini with stronger hardware, not just software tweaks, and spatial awareness. A full-sized Nest Audio for room-filling sound. And a Nest smart display — now that the Pixel Tablet hybrid dream seems in the lurch — to sit on my desk.

I’ve been waiting for this moment for years, and maybe, just maybe, it’ll finally happen. Tech gods, that’s your cue to utter Amen.