Google reveals its Gemini-powered smart home lineup and AI strategy (techcrunch.com)

Google unveiled a Gemini-powered refresh of its Google Home and Nest lineup and a revamped Google Home software platform, positioning Gemini as the core assistant for smarter, more conversational home devices. The company showed off new Nest Cam Outdoor/Indoor and Nest Doorbell models, teased an upgraded Google Home speaker for spring 2026, and announced a low-cost camera/doorbell partnership with Walmart under the onn brand. Importantly, Google said it will both ship flagship hardware and make Gemini available to other manufacturers via a “Works with Google Home” toolkit, a reference hardware design, System-on-Chip recommendations, a Google Camera embedded SDK, and cloud-to-cloud APIs — all tied together with Matter for cross-vendor compatibility. The updated Home app (early access available now) and device rollouts start immediately, while some advanced features require sufficient on-device processing and a Home Premium subscription. For the AI/ML community the move signals a major push to standardize conversational, multimodal agents in the smart home. Gemini enables contextual, free-flowing dialogues (Gemini Live), chained commands, natural follow-ups, automated routine creation via “Ask Home,” and camera event summarization — features that blend on-device compute with cloud models. The technical implications: hardware/software co-design matters (SoC choices and embedded SDKs), hybrid architectures (cloud-to-cloud + Matter) will be central, and partner access to Google’s toolset opens new opportunities for researchers and product teams to deploy Gemini-capable experiences across diverse price points and form factors.