Trust in Google Home has been pretty low over the last few years. Between the dwindling effectiveness of Google Assistant, the lagging response times for basic commands, and the higher price tags for premium subscription services, many users are ready to throw in the towel for Google Home in favor of the Amazon Alexa ecosystem.
Google wants to change that, though, with the chief of its smart home division stating that the company hopes to earn back some “love and trust” from its consumers by focusing on improving existing products rather than forcing you to switch to (and buy) something new.
Google wants users to “love and trust” its smart devices again
The worsening experience over the years won’t make it easy
For the first time in many years, Google announced an assortment of new smart home devices. Unfortunately, many users were far from excited about the announcement, insisting that these new devices won’t be enough to make up for the terrible Google Home experience that has plagued them over the last few years.
Fortunately, Google is apparently very aware of this fact and wants to make amends. In a post on X, Anish Kattukaran — who is the Chief Product Officer for Google Home and Nest — explained that Google is fervently committed to getting back in the good graces of its Google Home users.
Amid everything we launched/started rolling out last week, our most important message is our focus on prioritizing our existing Nest and Assistant users. We are committed to earning back your trust and love. I have no allusions that doing that will be easy.
How exactly does Google plan to win us back? Well, the launch of Gemini on existing devices is admittedly a good start. Kattukaran pointed out in an interview with Wired that “Google is prioritizing existing devices first,” rather than forcing users to purchase new devices to gain access to the more advanced AI model, which is Amazon’s current strategy.
Still, even with these concessions, earning back all that love and trust is going to be a serious uphill battle. Users have noticeably soured on the Google Home experience, complaining about everything from the basic accuracy in responses to outright broken automations.
In fact, trust in Google Assistant has gotten so bad that it’s fueling full-on conspiracy theories about the platform. Many users believe that Google is purposefully making its Assistant service less effective to pave the way for the transition to Gemini. And when your smart home system is so bad that it solicits the same level of thinking as people that think the earth is flat, you’re going to need more than kind words on X to sway the masses back in your favor.
