Gemini for Home's new 'expressive' lighting controls let you describe the vibes

Gemini’s expansion onto Google Home hasn’t been the smoothest rollout in the company’s history, but with both its AI platform and smart home ecosystems on the line, Google looks fully committed to seeing this one through. Today, Gemini for Home head Anish Kattukaran shares some of the latest improvements arriving to help enhance that experience, including some powerful new control options.

When it comes to your smart home, Gemini’s only as useful to the extent that it’s able to actually control all that hardware — and that’s exactly why some of these new upgrades sound so important. For one, Gemini’s learning to support precision appliance controls, letting you exactly specify things like temperature or humidity levels.

The upgrades extend to your HVAC system, too. New advanced climate controls give users the ability to dismiss system modes without having to cycle through all their options, or to hold temperature presets.

If you’ve struggled at all with Gemini failing to understand which of your oh-so-many smart home devices you’re trying to control, good news: It’s should start getting better. Google says that Gemini isn’t just improving at telling devices apart, but should feel “snappier” in its responses about specific devices.

Finally — and this is maybe the coolest-sounding one here — Gemini for Home is implementing support for “expressive” lighting controls. Do you ever have the perfect vibe in mind for your RGB smart lights but struggle to articulate your lighting design? Can never remember the word for “cerulean” when you need to? Gemini is learning to interpret your descriptive use of color, so you can ask to set your bedroom lights to “the color of sunset,” for example.

These changes should start hitting Gemini for Home devices as of today, although Kattukaran warns that it still might be a few days before everyone that’s eligible gets access.