Google has released the third Google Home update in September, delivering a set of new features, performance improvements, and bug fixes.
According to ITNA citing Android Authority, the important part of this update relates to Gemini for Home, which can now better recognize users' voice commands in noisy environments.
Google says Gemini now better filters background conversations when receiving a command. As a result, the likelihood of successfully registering a user's request in noisy environments increases, and after detecting the command the assistant's response is delivered more quickly. This capability applies to commands related to smart home, media, alarms, and timers.
Gemini's performance in multilingual households has also improved and the chance of misinterpreting requests has decreased. Also, if the assistant encounters an error during a conversation, it should no longer get stuck in a loop of repeated responses like "I didn't understand." In addition, the Find My Phone feature through Gemini for Home is now more reliable.
In the smart home control section, one significant change concerns adjusting light brightness. Previously, lowering the brightness slider of a dimmable light or group of lights to zero percent could leave some bulbs still on at minimal brightness. Now setting brightness to zero percent sends a full turn-off command.
The display of cameras and doorbells has also been improved. Tiles for online devices are now shown with filled icons to make it easier to distinguish active cameras from inactive devices.
Google has also improved the setup process for new Nest devices on Android and iOS. Fixes related to Bluetooth connectivity and Wi‑Fi pairing make device setup smoother. When adding multiple devices in succession, the app can securely store network information and use it for subsequent device setups.
This update also includes a set of bug fixes and stability improvements; including fixes for offline states of meter keys, issues controlling devices in Favorites, device type detection, buffering of older camera videos, erroneous "video unavailable" errors, and problems loading video history on Walmart Onn cameras.