Google finally starts a new smart speaker and it is a complete redesign. The new Google Home loudspeaker has a new, flattened spherical shape, new colors, a new light ring and many new AI-driven functions.
This week, the speaker will also perform the new Gemini language assistant together with a large Gemini update on the Google Home Smart Home platform instead of Google assistants. It will not be available until spring 2026, but I got an early look in New York City last week.
The Google Home Speaker has a completely new design of the NEST MINI and NEST AUDIO – a completely new design. With 99.99 US dollars, it is larger than a mini, but smaller than the audio, about the size of a HomePod mini, but wider and flatter. The loudspeaker starts in four colors: white, gray, green and red. I was particularly taken with the red berry color, which is light and fat – far from the muddy orange of the nest mini.
With a 360-degree audio, the loudspeaker recovers the offers of the competitors of Apple and Amazon. I heard Aerosmith's “I don't want to miss anything” with clear vocals, beautiful mids and some decent bass. You can combine two for stereo sound and connect them wirelessly with a Google TV streamer for TV -Surround -Sound -although I have not put it up.
Gemini is the primary interface for the speaker and was significantly improved by Google Assistant.
According to Google, the spokesman was developed “from scratch” to support Gemini for Home, the new Smart Home platform from Google, which brings AI at the front and to the center. It is supported by Google's new voice assistant Gemini and Support Gemini Live, a paid version that offers an experienced KI chat bot experience. It is also a Google Home Hub, a matter of matter and a thread border router that enables him to connect and control smart -home devices in Google Home.
Anish Kattukaran from Google Home informs me that the speaker offers custom processing for Gemini and optimized distant field microphones. Also new is a light ring, another function that also have the intelligent speakers from Apple and Amazon. The ring lies on the bottom of the device and changes the colors to display when Gemini listens, thinks or reacts.
I saw several demos of the new speaker who reacted live both as Gemini and as Gemini. The latter demands that they say “Hey Google, let us chat” to call it up while the former still reacts to “Hey Google” (and only “Hey Google”). Gemini is the primary interface for the speaker and was significantly improved by Google Assistant.
I was unable to ask inquiries myself because the speakers are summarized with voice match (it can work with up to six people in a house and guests). I watched the tester asked what vanilla was supposed to replace in a cookie recipe and heard how Gemini offers several usable suggestions. It was then asked to create a shopping list with ingredients for an authentic Pad Thai that she was up to.
I wrote more about Gemini's skills here, but my snack from these (very on the rails) Demos is that the voice assistant seems better to be able to understand natural language and have more access to real -time information that is more useful. However, I will not know exactly until I can test it myself.
I am very happy to try this natural language control surface with smart home devices. Kattukaran tells me that with Gemini you do not have to use precise nomenclature to bring devices to the operation, to put together several commands without specific names (ie “warmer” instead of “Turn the thermostat to 68 degrees”) and you can use statements (“All lights except the lights in the bedroom.”).))
The demos that I saw live with Gemini seemed to be more limited in a home context. The live assistant does not have to repeat the wake words and make it more natural, but the interactions do not differ from those that you can have with the Gemini Live Chatbot on your phone or computer. There is nothing special at home here.
The tester asked Gemini to help him create a recipe with eggs, spinach, feta and bread. It started to answer, then he interrupted it and asked to make the court of keto. Then he interrupted again and asked to be child -friendly. The chat bot was able to understand interruptions and easily turn it on the basis of the new instructions.
Gemini Live cannot take measures, so it is purely chatbot in a speaker.
However, no recipe could pull up on the Nest Hub Max screen, where they also had the experience or even send it to their phone. Gemini Live cannot take measures, so it is purely chatbot in a speaker.
Kattukaran says that access to life in the intelligent loudspeaker is “like 1000 experts on your worktop, your bedside table or in the living room”. My object is also my smartphone. However, Google's long -term plan is to bring everything live with Gemini today. “This is the world we build,” he says. Then things could be really interesting.
Photos by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge