For years we've dreamed of the smart home, but when we anticipated it, we didn't really picture a dozen hubs littered all over our house that do nothing but control only one type of device. Sadly, that's the truth we've come to. But Google seems to be taking the first steps to remedy this situation, starting with opening local control of smart devices to all developers and smart home manufacturers.
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Millions of homes now contain a smart assistant speaker of some variety and sales of IoT products continue to grow as the market matures and prices come down across the sector. With so many options available, it's hard to know what to buy, and that's where we come in — this is a selection of our favorite smart home gadgets. Whether you want to just dip your toes in the water with a cheap Google Nest Mini or dive into the deep end with smart lights, cameras, thermostats, doorbells, and so on — we’ve got you covered.
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Smart devices add a great level of convenience to your household, including the ability to control them remotely and using your voice. However, there are times when it's much easier to operate them the old fashioned way with the push of a button rather than with your voice. Sadly, not many come with physical controls, and even if they did, that would mean you'd have a bunch of remotes lying around.
To solve this issue, we've looked at how you can turn a phone or a tablet into a remote control for all of your smart home devices, without having to switch from one app to another.
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Being quarantined might make you realize you're missing a couple of smart speakers at home. Whether you want to set up a new infrastructure or extend the existing one, this insane deal lets you grab three speakers for just $99. The package includes two Google Homes, as well as a free Nest Mini, which would typically cost $247 when sold separately.
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As the spread of the novel coronavirus continues, health officials have one advisory above all others: you need to wash your hands for at least 20 seconds to make sure they're virus-free. Google's getting in on that action: you can now ask the Assistant for help washing your hands to hear a terrible song about it.
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Google Assistant has supported the Indonesian language on phones and TVs since March 2018, but since not all Assistant devices are created equal for languages and features, that meant smart speakers were left out of the loop. That's changing now.
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Google Home received an overhaul last year that reduced its number of bottom tabs from four to two — only home control and a feed remain. The latter hasn't been populated by too much content, but a recent update to version 2.19 changes that, at least if you own Nest security devices. The feed now shows you Nest Cam events in the form of highlights and makes the whole history available for viewing. The update also gives smart outlets icons that better depict which devices they're controlling.
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Despite launching with the Pixel 4 several months ago, the new Google Assistant still carries many restrictions, which make it practically unavailable for the grand majority of Android users. This limitation is a good thing, though, because it gives Google time to iron out bugs like the one we'll describe below: The Google Home app fails to start a routine if you're using this new Assistant.
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For most of us, Google Homes are Assistant and cast speakers first: We either ask for music or audio to be played or we use them like a Chromecast target from our phones. But that's discounting two other ways they can be used: as Bluetooth speakers and as source to stream to other Bluetooth speakers. For more than a year now, that functionality has been broken and Google Homes haven't been able to maintain a Bluetooth link without disconnecting, but the Mountain View giant has finally acknowledged the issue.
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It's been more than a couple of years since Google added a broadcast functionality to its Home speakers, but throughout all this time, it's been an all-or-nothing approach. You could either send the message to all speakers in a home or none at all. Now, it seems that Google is rolling out an option to broadcast to a single speaker.
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