What you need to know
- The Google Home team held an AMA on Reddit, and users chimed in heavily to voice their displeasure and curiosity about the app’s development.
- The team teased that there’s more to come for Google Home on the web, stating “additional controls” are on the way.
- A Google Home member stated that there is a “vision and roadmap” behind their development of the app and its features, but specifics weren’t stated.
The Google Home team held an AMA (ask me anything) on Reddit, answering questions about its web availability and devices. While many users took the opportunity to complain, the Google Home team provided a bit of insight into the future of the platform.
Several product and engineering managers were on deck to reply to users’ questions as things got underway. One user had a lengthy post, asking questions about Google Home’s controls on the web, devices, and the removal of Assistance in favor of Gemini. Jacqueline, a product manager, responded by stating, “We’re working on bringing additional device control to Google Home for web.”
The team didn’t have much more to say about what sort of controls users could expect, but the new additions would appear in a Public Preview first. The Home team declined to comment any further about AI in its devices.
Topics turned into questioning about when Google would bring an offline mode to the Home app. Team member Daniel said, “We’re focusing first on routing more of your interactions locally (thanks to Matter!) to get the reliability and latency benefits.” The post added that once Google feels it has a “significant” amount of your traffic operating locally, it will shift to focus on bringing “powerful” offline capabilities through the app.
Cohesiveness, or lack thereof, was another talking point for one user. Google Home’s Daniel took the lead once more, stating that the team has a “vision and roadmap” to help them navigate the process of software and product development.
Daniel mentioned the Home team’s need to create a brand new UI experience to accommodate its new camera protocols and acknowledged that it could cause “frustration and pain” for the user.
We’re still left wondering what Google Home’s current roadmap is for app development, as they did not share further.
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Despite the Home team declining to divulge its roadmap, mentioning the Matter connectivity standard for smart homes is a good starting point. The Matter 1.2 upgrade launched in October 2023, bringing with it support for nine device types. Moreover, the Matter standard helps smart devices communicate with one another (locally) instead of running through a company like Google.
Meanwhile, the latest Google Home update arrived for its web app earlier in March. The update brought camera history and a clip editor to web users, which were highly requested features the community pushed for. The latter enabled users to chop down and save clips that their cameras have recorded for other uses.
The update also brought the availability of the Public Preview testing space for Home web users to test new features.
