Google Assistant ruined my smart home setup — but Gemini just saved it

A year ago, the inconsistency of the Google Home ecosystem had me seriously considering leaving the platform altogether. Google Assistant and Siri were equally as unreliable, and the advent of Matter interoperability meant I wasn’t tied down to a single smart home ecosystem anymore. The switch from Google Assistant to Gemini for Google Home gave me a glimmer of hope that I might be able to keep my Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max displays as primary smart home controllers.

I’ve been using Gemini as my Google Home assistant since last October, and it made my Nest devices functional again — some as old as a decade. I’m thrilled with how my Home Hub (2018), Nest Hub Max (2019), and Nest Battery Doorbell (2021) work together with Gemini as their conductor.

Gemini feels like a joy to use compared to the unresponsive, sloppy, pared-down version of the Google Assistant we’ve settled for lately. It’s a savior, but one I only needed because of Google’s prior missteps.

Google Assistant got so bad, Gemini couldn’t be worse

The deterioration of Google Assistant’s capabilities has been well documented. Some of them were clearly stated by Google — it cut 28 features from Assistant in early 2024 and axed another seven last March. Not all of these Assistant feature deprecations affected the Google Home platform specifically, but they were a clear sign of what was coming. There were occasions when Google Nest hardware wouldn’t answer requests entirely, or when commands and automations were ignored. By the end of Assistant’s time running my smart home, I really wasn’t sure whether it or Siri was the worst digital assistant.

None of the aforementioned features Google cut from Assistant made me lose faith in it. Instead, the jarring change was the loss of functionality that Google didn’t explicitly state. The same request that worked weeks ago would suddenly fall flat. Answers that Google Assistant could’ve previously provided in natural language suddenly required web results. The smart home helper seemingly got worse over time, and as someone deeply invested in the Nest ecosystem, that was frustrating.

I don’t use my Nest Hub or Nest Hub Max displays for anything out of the ordinary. I need them to show me the live feed from my doorbell camera, adjust the temperature on my thermostat, and set alarms or timers. They also have to save me from having to pull out my phone every time I need the answer to a basic recipe. I liked that the Google Assistant on my Nest Hub Max could walk me through recipes in the kitchen early on, but that ability inexplicably faded away. Everything became a web result.

The bar for Gemini for Home was quite low, given how far the Google Assistant had fallen. Gemini is better, but I’m not sure Google deserves much credit.

Gemini actually answers questions, and that’s the bar

Gemini is superb at many of the things I use my smart displays for. I’ll say multi-step commands like, “Set alarms every 15 minutes between 6:00 AM and 7:00 AM,” and my Nest Hub handles them. I use similar commands on my Wear OS smartwatches, and the consistency of the Gemini experience across platforms is neat. Gemini will take a few seconds — maybe more than a few — to think before processing your request, but it usually gets it right. I’ll ask my Nest Hub to raise or lower the air conditioning temperature, and in a minute, it’ll hear it cranking throughout my apartment.

Everything works as it should, especially for smart home control. Google doesn’t deserve praise for simply matching the Assistant experience, but it does earn a pat on the back for upgrading it in certain areas. My original Google Home Hub (now called the Nest Hub) couldn’t display live Nest camera feeds before the transition. Following the Gemini upgrade, it works.

I can ask Gemini to show me what’s outside my door, or automatically see the view when someone rings my doorbell. It’s exciting that my eight-year-old smart display went from being on the verge of replacement to becoming one of the most important devices in my home.

My Google Home displays are smart home controllers first and foremost, and Gemini excels here. I can ask the assistant to run a speed test on my home Wi-Fi network, and it shows the results in seconds. Add in the handling of alarms, timers, and cameras, and my Nest Hub displays are once again everything I need them to be.

A smart home device should be able to do all those things. The best part of having Gemini in your home is how it answers everyday questions. Say you need to replace the battery in your AirTag or fix the speed of your turntable. Gemini can guide you through the process with simple, (usually) accurate information in natural-language responses rather than a list of web results.

I use the Nest Hub Max in my kitchen far more than the Nest Hub on my desk, and Gemini is a game-changer there. You can tell it what ingredients you’re working with and ask it for suggested recipes. It’ll present you with a few options, and you can pick one to get instructions. Gemini will ask if you have any follow-up questions, and I usually do. I can continue the conversation by asking to substitute one ingredient for another, and Gemini figures it out. I never see a single Google Search result, and that’s a good thing.

There are a handful of queries Gemini struggles with, and I can’t figure out why. Usually, the assistant falters with extremely specific questions. I can ask for the weather or the Mets’ score, but I can’t ask for the wind chill or the box score. I know Gemini has the ability to find this information and answer the question, so there are artificial limits to its helpfulness.

There are also unfortunate AI guardrails in place. Gemini won’t give me a vodka sauce recipe, and I can only imagine it’s because it involves alcohol. I’m not doing anything nefarious, Google, I’m just Italian. These shortcomings reveal there’s definitely room for Gemini to improve.

I just wish Gemini for Home didn’t try so hard

Gemini isn’t the perfect smart home assistant. In my Google Nest Hub wishlist, I asked for a lightweight on-device mode that could handle basic queries without relying on the cloud. Nest hardware already relied too much on cloud processing under Assistant, and it’s even worse with Gemini at the helm. Responses are slow, and you’ll never get the same response twice. Gemini could answer in a short sentence on one day and in a verbose string of paragraphs on another.

Gemini and Google are both trying too hard. There are Gemini for Home features, like Gemini Live, that really shouldn’t be locked behind a subscription. I enjoy the unabridged Gemini experience at home with Google AI Pro, but when I go to my parents’ house, it can feel like I’m using a much more limited helper.

I don’t know whether Gemini is better at managing my smart home than the Google Assistant was at its peak. In some ways, it’s like Google is solving problems it created by slashing Assistant features and functionality.

All I know is that my aging Nest hardware is working better than ever thanks to Gemini, so I can’t be mad about the transition. My Nest Hub, Nest Hub Max, and Nest Doorbell Battery are nearly eight, seven, and five years old, respectively. I was getting ready to move on from Google Home altogether, but the free Gemini upgrade convinced me to stay.