Google teased that it has a redesigned Home app in the works this week and that you would soon be able to sign up to join the beta. It looks like someone at the company hit some buttons early, as someone has already received the new app via a Play Store update—complete with a warning that it’s a confidential internal build that is not meant to be shared with others. This gives us a first glimpse of the new app in action.
One of our tipsters first reported that they received the app update after signing up to receive Google Home app previews using a workaround. Since the sign-up process they used doesn’t seem to be fully live and intended for the public just yet, it’s possible that this allowed our tipster to receive the internal version of the app, complete with “dogfood” branding which Google uses to denominate internal testing versions of apps. You can get this version of Home yourself from APK Mirror.
The new Home app is in a very early development stage
While the new interface isn’t live for everyone, we have some images shared by our tipster, Android Police founder Artem Russakovskii, and Esper.io Android expert Mishaal Rahman, who were able to activate it. Just like teased by Google, the new interface exhibits Material Design 3 elements with new button shapes and a new bottom bar, though it looks like it doesn’t support Material You theming based on your wallpaper just yet.
Just like teased by Google, the new interface reorganizes how you navigate the app. The bottom bar now consists of five sections: Favorites, Devices, Automations, Activity, and Settings. It’s possible to add a selection of your most-used devices under Favorites, while you can see all of the devices in your network in the Devices section. Under Automations, you can start your custom Household and Personal Routines, and you can add any new automations you might need.
There is also a whole new debug section in settings, which makes abundantly clear that this app is not meant for a public release. In it, it’s possible to change certain variables for testing, like your country and the cloud environment you’re using.
The new interface already looks polished and promising, but it’s clear that this is an early build. It’s not possible to reorder favorites just yet, and many devices aren’t properly recognized anymore. For example, a Nest Hub Max is only recognized as a display for us, but not as a camera. When trying to access camera history for any devices or for the full home, the loading process is excruciatingly slow, starting from oldest to newest. Nest events also don’t offer any audio. If you want to give this early app a try, be ready to downgrade to a more stable version after playing around with it for a bit.
Teardown shows Pixel Tablet Stand and more
There are a few more interesting tidbits in the app. It already has a workflow for setting up Matter devices, though given that the consortium has just now released Matter version 1.0, there are probably no devices out there that you own and actually set up that support Matter.
Mishaal Rahman was also able to find and enable a “Set up your dock” workflow in the new app. Based on strings describing the feature, it’s clear that this is meant as a way to set up the Pixel Tablet Google teased during Google I/O. While we already saw magnetic connectors on the back of the device before, this all but confirms that the Pixel Tablet will serve as a smart home hub. The description for the setup process further reads, “Dim lights with your voice, enjoy hands free controls, and personalize your tablet to suit you.”
There are some other interesting finds in a further quick teardown executed by Android expert Mishaal Rahman and shared with us. While we’re not sure when these first appeared, there are strings that point at Google finally preparing the option to connect Nest Audio speakers with the Chromecast with Google TV, allowing you to enjoy better sound quality when you watch your favorite shows.
<string name="default_audio_output_subtitle">Your TV sound will play from the connected speaker & you can control the volume with your Chromecast remote.</string>
<string name="default_audio_output_success_message">Default speaker set</string>
<string name="default_audio_output_title">Select audio output</string>
<string name="default_audio_output_tv_subtitle">Managed in settings for your TV</string>
<string name="default_audio_output_tv_title">TV default</string>
Additionally, the app lays some groundwork for the new Google Nest Wifi router. The company is working on adding a 160MHz channel toggle for better performance when using the 5GHz frequency.
<string name="use_one_sixty_mhz_bandwidth_description">Some devices are not compatible and may experience lower performance. %1$s.</string>
<string name="use_one_sixty_mhz_bandwidth_title">Use 160 MHz channel for maximum performance on 5GHz</string>
The redesign is not live for everyone on the new version
Some people report that the redesign showed up for them only after they force closed the app and then reopened it. This can be achieved by tapping and holding the Home icon on your home screen, selecting the i button (or App Info), and then choosing Force stop. Unfortunately, the trick doesn’t seem to work anymore. A lot of people who updated to the new version are stuck with the old interface. It’s possible that Google has already noticed the accidental rollout and is preventing the switch to the new interface via a server-side tweak to the APK.
Thanks: Anthony and Armando