GoKawiilBrady Snyder / Android Authority
A year ago, the inconsistency of the Google Home ecosystem had me seriously considering leaving the platform altogether. Google Assistant and Siri were equally as unreliable, and the advent of Matter interoperability meant I wasn’t tied down to a single smart home ecosystem anymore. The switch from Google Assistant to Gemini for Google Home gave me a glimmer of hope that I might be able to keep my Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max displays as primary smart home controllers.
I’ve been using Gemini as my Google Home assistant since last October, and it made my Nest devices functional again — some as old as a decade. I’m thrilled with how my Home Hub (2018), Nest Hub Max (2019), and Nest Battery Doorbell (2021) work together with Gemini as their conductor.
Gemini feels like a joy to use compared to the unresponsive, sloppy, pared-down version of the Google Assistant we’ve settled for lately. It’s a savior, but one I only needed because of Google’s prior missteps.
Did the switch to Gemini improve your Google Nest hardware? 1 votes It's better for Q&As 0 % It's worse for Q&As 0 % It's faster for commands 0 % It's slower for commands 100 %
Google Assistant got so bad, Gemini couldn’t be worse
Brady Snyder / Android Authority
None of the aforementioned features Google cut from Assistant made me lose faith in it. Instead, the jarring change was the loss of functionality that Google didn’t explicitly state. The same request that worked weeks ago would suddenly fall flat. Answers that Google Assistant could’ve previously provided in natural language suddenly required web results. The smart home helper seemingly got worse over time, and as someone deeply invested in the Nest ecosystem, that was frustrating.
The jarring changes were the losses in functionality that Google didn't explicitly state.
I don’t use my Nest Hub or Nest Hub Max displays for anything out of the ordinary. I need them to show me the live feed from my doorbell camera, adjust the temperature on my thermostat, and set alarms or timers. They also have to save me from having to pull out my phone every time I need the answer to a basic recipe. I liked that the Google Assistant on my Nest Hub Max could walk me through recipes in the kitchen early on, but that ability inexplicably faded away. Everything became a web result.
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