Google Home head Anish Kattokaran announced several updates to the smart home platform that fix a long list of annoyances and quirks. There’s also a notable new addition: the introduction of “Live Search” for your cameras.
So, instead of just knowing about things that have already happened, Gemini now understands what it sees in your live camera feeds. That means you can ask things like, “Ok Google, is there a car in the driveway?” Live Search requires a subscription to Google Home Premium’s advanced plan, which costs $20/month or $200/year.
Gemini for Home is also now using updated models, a change that improves the quality and accuracy of answers to common questions and supports the playback of newly released songs.
Gemini now also understands context better, which should improve how it targets smart devices. For example, saying “turn off the kitchen” will now target just the lights in the room instead of every smart device. And commands like “turn off all lights” will apply to your current location, and won’t target lights in a secondary location — such as a cabin or parents’ house — that you also manage.
