Google Home
The Google Home app appears to be rolling out better support for select smart home devices, including curtains, heaters, appliances such as washers and refrigerators, and more.
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The Google Home app has seen quite a few major improvements in the past several months, and the app is now expanding its support for cameras by adding streaming support for more camera models and brands.
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Google Assistant routines can be extremely helpful throughout your day, though sometimes, those routines can slip through the cracks and you find that one is starting without any interaction with your Google Assistant devices, such as a Nest Hub. This guide will take you through how you can check for mystery active Google Assistant routines in your smart home that you might want to disable.
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SwitchBot’s plethora of devices has made for some really simple and effective smart home tech, although much of it has been slightly problematic when connecting to Google Home or other ecosystems. With the newest Matter device – the Hub 2 from SwitchBot – the company’s Bluetooth devices are now able to slide into any ecosystem with ease, thanks to Matter.
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To keep your personal property safe, Nest Cameras are preparing a new feature to monitor your garage door, alerting you when it opens and if it’s been open for too long.
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The latest preview update of the Google Home app includes a new design for the “Device controls” area that’s accessible from the Android lockscreen.
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The latest version of the Google Home app (2.66) is rolling out as a smaller update with a pair of visual tweaks for the Preview redesign.
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Design-wise, Google has already shown off a lot about the Pixel Tablet. The latest leak goes in-depth on its “Stand,” while here are some details about the Pixel Tablet’s “Hub Mode.”
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Some Google Home app users are seeing “Wi-Fi Labs” for their Nest Wifi router to try out experimental features. This might be an internal capability that was accidentally made available outside the intended test pool.
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The Google Home app Public Preview is set to get a number of features before it more widely launches. The ability to reorder devices in Google Home’s Favorites tab is now starting to roll out for those in the beta program.
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Adding your Xbox to the Google Home app and connecting it to Google Assistant has some advantages. To get those, you’ll need to connect it. Here’s how.
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Google Assistant devices such as the Nest Hub and Nest Mini are handy for a lot of things, and many folks use them for music above all else. But if you’re trying to use radio stations from services such as Pandora via a Google Home routine or an Assistant command, you may have noticed that the functionality is partially broken.
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The Google Home app has been undergoing a reinvention in over the past year, and one of the best new features is improved control over TV devices. If you happen to own a Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync box, Google Home also just became the best app you can use for quick controls.
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Building on Google Assistant voice command support, Microsoft is rolling out an Xbox update that lets you remote control the console with the Google Home app.
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The Matter standard for smart home devices has been full of big promises, but the vast majority of people haven’t been able to experience it for themselves. If you’re curious, though, here’s what it’s actually like to use Matter on Android with the Google Home app.
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As part of the Home app Public Preview, Google has redesigned Wifi controls with the list of connected devices seeing the big upgrade.
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Some users of the Google Home app Public Preview have received a thorough survey asking them to rate the redesigned experience. Spanning 20+ pages, it appears as a card in the Activity tab.
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As first promised in 2021, the Google Home app is making tangible progress toward fully supporting previous generations of Nest Cam hardware, including setup.
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Some television sets can be controlled by the Nest Hub, and the Google Home app is now finally starting to pick up those touch-based controls.
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The smart home is being reinvented right now with the arrival of Matter, and going into 2023, we’re about to see a lot of changes. One of those is the new “Works with Google Home” banner on Matter products, with Govee among the first to adopt the branding with its first Matter-enabled light strip.
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The big shift for the majority of smart home brands this year will be the inclusion of the Matter standard in devices. With that, those devices are able to communicate with more ecosystems with ease. At CES, SwitchBot has unveiled the Hub 2, a bridge for SwitchBot Bluetooth devices to work with any ecosystem.
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As a product of Google Home’s restructuring, Google is bringing live video feeds to Nest Camera users over the web, with easy access to your cameras over the internet and without the Google Home app. This guide will take you through using the new site to view your Google Nest Cameras live in any browser.
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Citing user feedback since the Public Preview launched in October, Google is rolling out an update to the Home for Wear OS app.
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After years in the works, Matter is the next big hope for improving the smart home. Here’s what Google and Nest devices are compatible with Matter.
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