[Update: Unified ‘Lighting’ controls] Google Home app rolling out Nest Cam events in Feed

Last year, the Google Home app was redesigned to only feature two main sections, including a centralized “Feed” that highlights important changes. Google is now rolling out Nest Cam events to the Home app and an improved Lights quick action.

Original 3/12: According to the iOS release notes today, the Google Home app will soon show “Nest Cam events” in the Feed. At Made by Google 2019, the company touted the ability to “watch full video clips or listen to audio clips” right in that tab. Today, the feed is quite basic and lacking any smarts.

This joins priority events from the last 30 days, and an overview of device activity from the past 48 hours. If you don’t have compatible smart home appliances, you’ll continue to see “Discover” suggestions about Chromecast and other media devices.

Meanwhile, Google also touts “improved support for quickly turning your lights on and off from the Lights quick action.” We noticed on Android that a smart plug connected to — and named as — a “lamp” gained the default smart bulb icon after updating to version 2.19.

Update 3/23:  Instead of two seperate tiles for on and off, there’s now a unified button that slides up a “Lighting” sheet. There are master “All” controls above, with each fixture listed below in alphabetical order. These new bottom-oriented controls are easier to reach.

These changes will be rolling out over the next two weeks as a server-side update. The addition of Nest Cam events could coincide with the launch of the new Nest Aware, which will recognize interesting occurrences, slated for early 2020. It will include a new pricing model and other smart features for devices.

Google Home 2.19 is widely available on iOS, and just beginning to roll out on Android. The full update log is below:

Over the next two weeks we’ll be rolling out the following features:

• Improved support for quickly turning your lights on and off from the Lights quick action.
• The Feed tab highlights important activity from supported devices for you and other home members. Now you can see Nest Cam events in the Home feed.
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