Last spring, the Nest Secure finally picked up Assistant-based controls, letting you do things like arm/disarm, and check the status of your home security setup from your phone or Google Home. It would appear that was merely the first step in deeper Assistant integration following the merger of Nest with Google's hardware team. Starting today, your Nest Secure won't just accept commands from your Google Home, it'll start to behave like one itself. That's right, it's getting the Assistant.

This marks the 2nd Nest product after the Cam IQ to pick up Assistant integration in an update, and if it behaves anything like that, your Nest Secure will effectively be a Google Home whenever you need it to be. We're explicitly told that means the expected functionality like Routines, reminders, and task management, but presumably, more mundane activities like music playback will be supported, too.

However, we're told one feature is specifically not present, and that is the ability to disarm the Nest Secure itself via the newly baked-in Assistant.

The functionality is coming to the Nest Guard — the slightly-smart-speaker-shaped hub and heart of the Nest Secure system — and not the bundled Nest Detect or Nest Tag. With its built-in keypad and tag-scanning functionality, odds are you've got it placed near your front door in an easily accessed spot. Starting today, you'll be able to use it for a whole lot more stuff, though we don't know when the rollout of this feature will be complete.

UPDATE: 2019/02/06 7:57am PST BY RYNE HAGER

Although the initial press release was light on details, a video published later yesterday reveals both the setup process and a key piece of information: this feature is disabled by default. To turn your Nest Guard into a smart speaker, you'll need to manually enable the additional functionality via the Nest and Google Assistant apps.

There are also a few tips and tricks at the end for how to integrate your Nest Guard into the Assistant's Routines, if you've never played with them before.

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