what you need to know
- The Google Home team held an AMA on Reddit, and users spoke enthusiastically to express their dissatisfaction and curiosity about the development of the app.
- The team teased that there will be more features coming to the web version of Google Home, saying “additional controls” are coming soon.
- A Google Home member said there was a “vision and roadmap” behind developing the app and its features, but didn’t elaborate on the specifics.
The Google Home team hosted an AMA on Reddit (Ask Me Anything) to answer questions about its network availability and the device. While many users took the opportunity to complain, the Google Home team provided some insight into the future of the platform.
As things progressed, several product and engineering managers were on hand to answer user questions. One user posted a lengthy thread asking about Google Home’s control over networks, devices, and the removal of support for Gemini. Product manager Jacqueline responded: “We are working hard to bring more device control to Google Home on the web.”
The team didn’t reveal more about what controls users can expect, but new additions will appear in public preview first. The Home team declined to comment any further on the artificial intelligence in its devices.
The conversation turned to questions about when Google will bring an offline mode to the Home app. “Our first focus is on routing more interactions locally (thanks Matter!) to gain reliability and latency benefits,” team member Daniel said. The post adds that once Google thinks it has “significant” traffic locally, it will will shift to focus on bringing “robust” offline capabilities through the app.
Cohesion, or lack thereof, was another talking point from one user. Google Home’s Daniel once again took the lead, saying the team has a “vision and roadmap” to help them stay on top of the software and product development process.
Daniel mentioned that the Home team would need to create an entirely new UI experience to accommodate the new camera protocol, admitting that this could cause “frustration and pain” for users.
We’re still wondering what Google Home’s current app development roadmap is, since they haven’t shared it further.
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Although the Home team declined to reveal its roadmap, mentioning the Matter connectivity standard for smart homes is a good starting point. The Matter 1.2 upgrade will be rolled out in October 2023 and supports nine device types. Additionally, the Matter standard helps smart devices communicate with each other (locally) rather than running through a company like Google.
Meanwhile, the latest update to Google Home’s web app was released in early March. The update brings camera history and a clip editor to web users, a highly requested feature from the community. The latter enables users to capture and save clips recorded by the camera for other uses.
The update also provides a public preview space for home network users to test new features.