Google Home announced a Spring Update for their Smart Home Platform, Google Home. There is a new Favorites Widget for Android and new functionalities for Watches in Wear OS. People enrolled in Public Preview are now able to use these new features.
New features
Google announced a list of features which improve the Google Home experience, allowing users to quickly control their Smart Home with the new widget on Android phones and access from the watch face on Wear OS. These are the new features introduced by Google:
- Favorites widget for easy access on your homescreen available on Android
- Access to Smart Home devices on the watch face of Wear OS on your Android Watch
- More ways to control Smart Home devices, such as blind rotation and fan speed
- Information on battery status in the Google Home app
- Video history on Google Home for web, allowing to download clips and search for specific dates and times
- Create, edit or delete scripted automations on home.google.com, which will also appear in the Google Home app
- Video feed and two-way audio of doorbell on the Pixel Tablet when someone rings the doorbell
- Customisation of the length of video clips in the Google Home app
- Fast Pair to connect headphones with your Google TV Chromecast
This is the second update from Google regarding Google Home this month, as they previously announced new Google Home API’s, allowing Matter devices to be connected to any app on Android, Smart Home related or not. This allows e.g. integration of your Smart Lights with a delivery service, where the colour of your smart lights could represent the current status of your delivery. Eve, known for their Smart Home products for Apple HomeKit, announced the Eve for Android app based on the new API’s for Google Home. With the growing support for Matter on Smart Home devices, this unlocks a lot of possibilities for a wide range of integrations of Smart Home within Android apps.
