Google Home gets a smarter Gemini with new upgrades

The Google Home app’s latest update is out now, bringing expanded voice controls to Gemini for Home, complete with smaller changes that should make managing automations less of a chore.

The biggest change with the update is Gemini’s new ability to understand a much broader range of voice commands across media and home device controls. Plus, you can now combine media commands with other types of commands within one request, enabling dual-action prompts like “Turn off the lights and stop the music.”

Compared to the original Google Assistant, Gemini for Home is already a much more capable and conversational assistant. That’s precisely why it was a little strange that it couldn’t handle combined media and smart home commands. Regardless, the ability to string those commands together is finally here now, so commands like “Skip this song and turn on the backyard lights,” or “Stop the music and turn off the living room lights” will no longer return with a confused response or an error.

Elsewhere, if you’re a Google Home user, you might have recently encountered issues with setting alarms and adding items to Google Keep lists. With the new update, the tech giant confirmed that both the bugs have been squashed and the commands should now work as intended.

Lastly, the update makes your Google Home automations much easier to manage. Your automation starters, conditions, and actions within the automation editor will now automatically be sorted alphabetically, allowing you to find specific devices capabilities quickly. Plus, if you use a third-party application for your automation needs, Google Home will now respect any visibility restrictions you’ve set in the third-party app. This means that private third party app routines will not visually clutter your Google Home automation list.