C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
TL;DR Google has quietly removed the option to call your smart displays from the Google Home app on your phone.
The “Call Home” feature allowed you to call the smart display from your phone while using the same Google account.
A Redditor noted the option has vanished from the app following the recent redesign.
The other alternative is to call other users over Meet, but it requires their accounts to be added to the display as well.
In 2018, Google added the option to call smart displays with Google Home over Duo. While it was considered a handy option by some, the feature truly did not take off as Google had expected. The lack of user interest could partly be blamed on Google’s limited love for smart displays (including abandoning the Nest Hub itself) and on the feature being limited to folks who use US English as their default device language. Now that Meet has replaced Duo, Google seems to be killing the option to call your home devices.
As noted by Reddit user chelitazz, Google appears to have removed the “Call Home” button from the Google Home app on Android. The button, which was previously positioned above the Broadcast option in the Google Home app, is no longer visible, and this change appears to be in line with the Home app’s recent redesign that brought deeper Gemini integration.
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Google has also seemingly removed any mentions of Call Home from its support page — you can still find them in the archived version — and that confirms its departure from the option to call smart displays. Google has gone ahead and even wiped out the option to call Google Home from your phone.
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