Roger Fingas / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google Home is developing a new workflow for setting up new devices.
- The interface is search-based, letting you look up a brand’s app or individual models.
- You can easily see which hardware supports Matter, and confirm your results with a picture.
The Gemini-fication of Google Home has begun, and if you signed up for early access, you’ve had the opportunity to try out the new Home UI for a few weeks now. But not all the changes we saw Google working on have been implemented yet. Today we’re taking another look at one of those WIP tweaks, as we preview what Home is doing to make it easier to set up new devices.
Last time around, we were able to surface a new interface for the screen the Home app uses to scan a QR code for adding a new device.
Even with early access, we’re still seeing that screen on the left. But today we’re not so much concerned with this QR-based workflow as we are with that button at the bottom of the new UI for alternate setup methods. That wasn’t working at all for us when we took a peek last month, but now we’re finally able to get an advance look at the changes waiting behind it.
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Today we’re working with version 4.1.55.1 of the Google Home app. You won’t see any of these screens in the app right now, but when this finally goes live, tapping that button should take you to a new screen where you can search by brand name, finding not just apps you might want to link to Home, but individual devices, as well.
Compared to the existing system, which is largely dependent on you either scanning a QR code or Home being able to detect a device in need of setup, directly choosing your product from a list could have a lot of appeal, especially for more novice smart home users.
We also see Google including some useful details about capabilities here, noting which hardware is Matter-enabled. When you finally find the device you’re looking for, you may even see a photo of it to help you confirm.
Not all hardware may necessarily include a picture, though, as we’ve also spotted some placeholder graphics.
Still, this sounds like a huge upgrade for Google Home, and it’s not set to come at the expense of anything that’s already working well — this looks like it will just be one additional way to set up new devices, without replacing existing options.
Right now it’s tough to say with any certainty when Google might introduce these changes, but we’re clearly seeing progress — we’ll loop you in with any further tweaks we manage to spot.
⚠️ An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
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