Google Gemini For Home review

Google Gemini for Home: Introduction

It’s clear that voice assistants need to get smarter. Interactions that require a specific phrasing or order of words are out, and natural speech is in, powered by GenAI. With Amazon Alexa+ setting the gold standard, its main competition at the moment is Google Gemini For Home.

Powered by Google’s AI, the system, with its access to all of the company’s search data, should be the best. Is this the system that puts Google Home back on the map, or should you move away from it? My review tells all.

Availability

Google Gemini For Home is rolling out now as an upgrade to those with compatible smart speakers. These are the brand-new Google Home Speaker, the Nest Hub (both versions), Nest Audio, Nest Mini and Nest Hub Max.

That’s pretty much all of Google’s speakers released over the last seven years, so there’s a good chance that if you have a Home speaker, you’ll be able to get Gemini for Home.

In addition to the free version of Google Gemini for Home, there’s also a paid-for subscription, which also replaces Nest Aware. In this move, Google seems keen to remove all mentions of Nest from its smart home portfolio.

Google Home Premium Standard ($10/£8 a month or $100/£80 a year) also includes 30 days of video history, intelligent alerts, Gemini Live, and in-app help to create automations. Google Home Premium Advanced ($20/£16 a month or $200/£160 a year) ups video history to 60 days, and adds 24/7 recording for wired products, AI-powered video search and descriptive notifications.

Buy the new Google Home Speaker and you get six months of Google Home Premium Standard.

Conversations and general information

One of the things that makes Amazon Alexa+ so good is that it has been tuned to work in different countries outside of the US. That means that it’s programmed to understand regional dialects, and respond in an appropriate way.

I can’t say the same thing about Google Gemini for Home. Start by asking what it can (Hey Google, what can you do?), and one the suggestions was to try setting the thermostat to 72. That’s fine if you’re in the US, but Gemini knows I’m in the UK, and setting the thermostat to that level would be insane. It should really have suggested a temperature in Celsius.

What Gemini for Home is good at is natural language. I can ask if there’s a good day for a BBQ, and get the right response. Or, I can find out when my football team (Spurs) are next playing. 

It will also give answers to generic questions, such as whether a certain Tube line is running, who played a lead role in a film, or even who England played in the World Cup semi-finals in 2018.

Just like with Alexa+, I can follow up with more questions to refine the results, all without having to repeat the full question. Gemini for Home does understand natural conversation.

Gemini for Home does start to go downhill with the little details. For example, when I first upgraded to Gemini for Home, I told it that my wife was a vegetarian. I then asked Gemini to recommend a chicken dish for me and my wife, which it did straight away.

A couple of days later, the same query resulted in Gemini telling me that my wife was vegetarian, and so the suggestions were either chicken-free or contained options where the chicken could be added at the end to one portion.

That’s great, I thought, Gemini has learned. But, leave it alone for a few weeks and try again, and Gemini has forgotten that my wife is vegetarian. Only, it hasn’t. Ask Gemini what it knows about my wife, and it brings up a note saying that she’d vegetarian.

After that, asking for recipe recommendations works properly for a short while, with vegetarian options; after a period of time, Gemini forgets to look up this information. It’s frustrating, particularly as Alexa+ is so good at remembering what you tell it, fine-tuning its results each time.

A trick to catch out AI is to ask how many letters are in a specific word. I asked Gemini, “How many ‘Ms’ are there in the word mammal?” The response was, “There are three megaseconds in the word mammal.” 

I get that Gemini for Home has misunderstood the question, but its response doesn’t make any sense. I tried to clarify what I’d heard and asked, “How many megaseconds are there in the word mammal?” 

Gemini said, “That is a bit of a trick question. Megasecond is a unit of time, not a word related to the spelling of mammal. As we discussed, there are three megaseconds in the word mammal, and a megasecond is exactly one million seconds. Would you like to know more about how time measurements work?”

This is just nonsense spouted by an AI that is generating words. Gemini for Home really needs to check what it’s about to say and ask for clarification if its results don’t make sense.

Gemini for Home is very basic on a smart display, such as my old Nest Hub (2^nd Gen). Rather than putting images and additional information on screen, the display is just used to show the full text of the response on a plain white background. Google really needs to do better.

Local business search

Local information is generally better than with Alexa+, too. Asking Alexa+ about local French restaurants has it recommending one that shut down years ago. Gemini for Home, when asked the same question, first thought that I was in Leytonstone, so gave some wrong results. However, I corrected it to say that I was in Wanstead, and it recommended Provender, which is the best French restaurant for miles.

There are no integrations to book a table at a restaurant, so once you have the information, you’ll still need your phone or laptop to do anything.

Documents, calendars and beyond

Gemini for Home will work with a Gmail calendar, provided it’s not from a Workspace (paid-for) account. Other calendars aren’t supported, which is a shame. I could create events easily enough or get Gemini to check my upcoming schedule, all of which worked well.

It’s a shame that Gemini for Home currently can’t be sent a photo or PDF and then make sense of the data in it. With Alexa+ I can send letters from the school, for example, and have it automatically create calendar events and reminders. 

I asked Gemini if it could read a PDF, and it suggested uploading the information to the chat. Since there’s no upload option on a smart speaker, I asked how I could do that. Gemini said I couldn’t, but I could try reading the PDF aloud. No thank you.

Smart home

Voice control largely works in the same way as with the old voice assistant, so I could turn on lights, control a thermostat or turn a smart plug off. I don’t find Gemini for Home as fast as Alexa+, though. Sometimes commands can take quite a few seconds to run, and the system feels laggy.

Natural language does make some things better. I can chain together multiple requests into one command (turn on a light, set the AC to 21°C and turn off the printer), and it all works well.

But some more complex instructions don’t work. I asked Gemini to turn on my office light and then turn it off again after five minutes. This turned the light on, but set a timer that just played a chime when it ran out. 

There’s also no option to create routines with voice, which is something that Alexa+ can do. I’m not sure why Google hasn’t implemented this.

Some requests were also a bit random in how they were implemented. My Google Home app is set up with rooms, and I correctly placed my Google Home Speaker in the office, along with all the smart devices in that room, including lights and a misting fan.

I said, “OK Google, it’s hot in here.” Alexa+ reacts to that command by turning the fan on. Gemini reacted the first time by turning the AC on in the test lab, miles away. I repeated the request and this time my fan did turn on, but I have no idea why the initial response was so wrong.

Final thoughts

General interactions with Gemini for Home are a big improvement. If you want the answer to a general question, to find local businesses or to add a calendar appointment, the system works very well. It’s good to see that support goes a long way back to early smart speakers and displays, too.

It’s in the detail that Gemini for Home misses out. It struggled to remember information that I’d told it, unless prompted again; it sometimes does odd things when asked to control a smart device; it can spout absolute nonsense; it can’t get information from photos or PDF files; the smart display experience is dull; and it can often feel quite laggy. As it stands, Alexa+ is worlds ahead, and the system I use at home.

How we test

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Our reviews are comprehensive, objective and fair and, of course, we are never paid directly to review a device.

Read our guide on how we test robot vacuum cleaners to learn more.

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