9to5Google Weekender: Google keeps failing its Nest customers

Ben Schoon | May 7 2023 - 9:00 am PT

Nest has been an incredibly popular brand in the smart home world over the past several years, but ever since Google took over, the pillars that customers loved about Nest have been slowly chipped away at. And while there’s still a lot to love about Nest in 2023, Google has failed its customers in some major ways.

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Looking back over the past two years, Google’s “refresh” of the Nest brand into “Google Nest” has been fraught with problems. It started with the long-awaited new hardware being pushed away from the Nest app that so many customers have come to love, only to offer half the features and functionality within the Google Home app. That’s slowly been remedied, as Google has worked on revamping the Home app, including fixes for Nest cameras, but it’s still quite the mess. Users still can’t create manual clips, there’s still limited to no integration with legacy Nest products (i.e., Nest Protect), and this new experience is still limited to invite-only beta testers.

Hopefully, some of that will change this coming week at Google I/O.

And while Google deserves a lot of credit for keeping legacy Nest products up to date with services and just not abandoning them, as so many other brands might have done, the company has also done poorly with discontinuing products.

The Nest Secure security system that was released in 2017 is slated to go offline later this year. Discontinuing a product and putting it into maintenance mode is one thing, but killing a completely functional piece of gear is worse. This is made even tougher by the fact that Google isn’t making a proper replacement. Rather, the company handed that off to a partnership with ADT. This week, we spent some time with that new system, and the short version of that hands-on is that it basically forgets everything that made the Nest Secure so good.

Hands-on: Google & ADT’s security system makes Nest Secure roll over in its grave

Google has shown time and time again that it’s trying to right its wrongs, but the clock is ticking.

Before the 2021 reboot, Nest had a smart home ecosystem that was years ahead of its time. Google has entirely given up that lead to competitors, who are now offering products that are comparable, if not better, in many cases. Nest now has to rest not on its lead but on what it can do better, and, at this point, I’m really wondering what Google can do better besides integrating with a smart display.

This Week’s Top Stories

Pixel leaks continue

With just a few days to go until I/O, Google’s upcoming Pixel products just keep leaking.

This week the Pixel 7a was officially teased, Google straight up showed off the Pixel Fold, and more information came out about the Pixel Tablet.

We also exclusively reported that the second-generation Pixel Watch will be released later this year.

Passkeys are now on your Google account

This week Google, somewhat unexpectedly, delivered passkey support for Google accounts. This enables users to sign in without a password by using their smartphone as a security key of sorts.

Gmail gets a blue check and more ads

Google is working to combat spam in Gmail by adding a new verification mark to emails from trusted senders. The new symbol, which – surprise surprise – is a blue checkmark, started rolling out this week. Notably also this week, Gmail started showing more ads in the inboxes of many users.

The Google Home app expands support again

Google delivered a few key updates to the Home app this week, including further expanding device controls. Garage doors are now supported, and Google also expanded on lighting controls. A new “Inbox” tab was also added for notifications, and a slightly tweaked UI seems to be rolling out to some users as well. It feels as though we’re approaching some big announcements at I/O.

Google TV gets a major update

A major update for Google TV started rolling out this week, with a focus on improving performance on all devices by lessening “wait time” when booting the device as well as improving the responsiveness of the remote. Devices based on Android TV 12 will also get a boost on available storage, with app hibernation offloading apps that haven’t been used in the past 30 days.

What’s coming up?

Of course, this coming week will be Google I/O 2023. We’ll have all of the latest news right here on 9to5Google, so check back daily for everything you need to know. With that in mind, our newsletter will be a bit limited in the coming week, with no new issue on Tuesday. But we’ll be back for 9to5Google Weekender to recap I/O and more.