Sign-ups for new Google Home app Public Preview start rolling out

Following the announcement last month, the Google Home app Public Preview is beginning to go live.

Google today is rolling out the ability to request an invite for the Public Preview within Google Home for Android and iOS.

Once live, tap the Settings gear icon and you should see “Public Preview” under “General.” Tap “Request invite” to continue, while you can also “Revoke invite request” from here. You can go back to the stable app at any time after joining.

If you’re accepted, the Google Home app shows a notification that says it’ll soon update to Public Preview.

Google says the following new features are currently in the Home app: 

• Favorites: Easily access your favorite devices and actions. This includes the ability to favorite your cameras so you can view your live streams right when you launch the app.
• Spaces: Quickly access groups of similar devices such as lights.
• Devices: Find all of your devices and easily check their status
• Refreshed camera and timeline views:
  • Vertical video history timeline: Quickly scrub through hours of video history or jump to live view.
  • Event views: Access a list of events and scrub to an exact moment. See video in landscape mode on your phone or tablet.
  • Quick actions: See and talk to anyone in front of your camera or doorbell with live or pre-recorded messages. Call emergency services (U.S. Nest Aware subscribers only), access device settings, and download any event to your phone.
• Media mini player: See what’s playing in your home and adjust the volume or access the remote.
• Activity: Review what happened in and around your home.
• Settings: Find and manage devices, services, and home members.

The following “known issues,” including supported devices, are also identified:

• You will initially be able to favorite your devices and actions on the Favorites Tab but not your Automations. The ability to favorite your automations will be rolling out shortly.
• The New camera controller experience (with live and vertical history views) is only available for Nest cameras and doorbells that were set up using the Google Home app. These include Nest Cam (battery), Nest Cam with floodlight, Nest Cam (indoor, wired), Nest Doorbell (battery), and Nest Doorbell (wired, 2nd gen). Support for older cameras is coming soon.
• The redesigned Google Home app does not support a number of older devices (ex: Nest Protect) from the Nest App.
• Upon reinstallation, the app may revert to the old experience on the first start. Subsequent starts will restore the public preview experience.