Gemini vs. Assistant: Can Google’s New AI Fix Your Smart Home?

Google Assistant it’s something many of us have relied on for years. From setting reminders and timers to controlling media and smart home devices, the digital butler has become a valuable part of many people’s lives, mine included.

If you’ve noticed a decline in overall reliability over the past few years, you’re not alone. I started noticing it as other products, including Google Gemini (formerly Bard), began to gain more visibility on Google. But coincidence or not, it’s certainly it appears related. However, Google seems to be trying to address these issues, as Gemini seems to be heading towards the Google Home world via these recent announcements.

Unfortunately, these updates don’t seem to be focused on restoring Google Assistant to what it once was, the reliable digital assistant that seemed to know what you needed before you asked for it. So what does Gemini’s foray into Google’s smart home platform mean if it doesn’t solve the problems? Let’s see if we can fix it.

What improvements will Google Gemini bring to Google Home?

Gemini is a powerful AI tool that Google is using in a variety of ways. However, most of the current use cases don’t directly correlate to how smart home users interact with their smart homes via Google Assistant. But that’s starting to change with the latest announcement of Google Gemini coming to Google Home.

Perhaps the most important integration, and honestly a really great use for it, is Nest Security Cameras. My colleague Tyler Lacoma wrote about how it works and what to expect from it. The brief is that Gemini’s multimodal functionality, because it can work with text, images, and video, will allow Nest cameras to better and more accurately recognize what they’re seeing. This will help generate better previews and more accurate notifications, among other things.

As for how Gemini will affect other parts of Google Home and smart home devices, the initial integration is a bit thin, but helpful. If you’ve ever tried to create automations in Google Home, or Routines, as Google sometimes calls them, while not terribly difficult, it can be tedious and sometimes confusing. This can be frustrating for beginners or casual smart home users.

When it comes to creating more complex automations, Google has introduced a script editor and a generative AI-powered “Help me” script. This feature works relatively well, and the AI ​​integration helps those who aren’t sure how to work with scripts. Unfortunately, the script editing is too advanced for many people, and even experienced users would appreciate a simpler option. This is where the new Gemini integration comes in.

The idea of ​​enabling Gemini will work similarly to how you would ask Google Assistant to set a reminder, add something to your shopping list, or other helpful phrases. Now you will be able to ask for help creating automations using your voice and regular speech.

This is the last part that will really make this new automation assistant feature work. Part of what makes Gemini easier to use is that it allows for normal, everyday speech. So instead of having to memorize the exact words and the order they need to be in, you can just speak as you would to a person, and it should come across. Below is an example from Google and how Gemini can help.

What do you need to solve with Google Gemini?

I used to be an avid Google Home and Google Assistant user. As Android phone user, I have way too much information in Google services, which should make using the Google Assistant in my smart home an obvious choice. For a long time, that was the case. But over the last few years, the experience has gotten so bad that I rarely use the Google Assistant for any smart home needs, or anything else.

Just asking Google Assistant to turn on the lights or adjust the thermostat resulted in a response that it “doesn’t know how to do that yet.” This issue led me to migrate most of my smart home devices to Amazon Alexa and Home Assistant. Now, much to my family’s chagrin, I still have Google Assistant smart speakers and smart displays throughout my house, but outside of music and photos, these devices mostly just sit there.

When I mentioned to Google during a briefing on new features and Google TV Streamer that Google Assistant fails more often than it succeeds with basic smart home controls and whether there would be fixes for this issue in the near future, I was told, “Gemini integration will help improve the quality and consistency of Assistant features. Quality is a top priority for the team.” While I’m sure Google would like to improve the overall quality of Google Assistant, it’s unclear how or when that will happen.

I also asked about how Google Gemini and Google Assistant will work together in the future: “In the context of the home, our core user needs haven’t changed with the development of LLMs like Gemini. Our users want to be safe, comfortable, and entertained. These user priorities and needs have remained the same even with the development of Gemini. Now, we’re at an AI tipping point where Gemini is poised to help serve and enhance those user needs that we’ve always had.”

So I guess we’ll have to wait and see

It’s clear that Google plans to integrate Gemini with as many of its services as possible, and that could be a good thing. Seeing as how the AI ​​tool is already improving parts of Google Home and Nest, there’s hope. But given the basic functionality of using Google Assistant to control your smart home, the mess and Gemini still not being able to control those devices directly, the map resolution is about as clear as the maps used to explore the world in 1492, at least for users in the field.

Google hasn’t directly outlined its plan for Gemini and Google Assistant, whether they’ll remain separate or eventually merge. As a Google Assistant and Home user, this leaves a sour taste in my mouth, as I and many others don’t have a reliable voice assistant to control smart home devices. But isn’t that exactly the point of the smart speakers and displays Google is delivering?