It increasingly feels like Google's AI assistant is omnipresent across our devices and, starting next month, it could also be in your home.
In a post on X on Tuesday, the company teased, "Gemini is coming to Google Home," and told us to, "Come back October 1."
At its Made by Google event in August, the company announced Gemini for Home among a slew of other product announcements, so this has been in the works for a while.
Tuesday's X post teaser appears to show an image of a Nest camera, which Google last upgraded four years ago, suggesting the security camera could be set for a refresh. An upgraded Nest speaker and doorbell, both with 2K camera support, could also be part of the Oct. 1 unveiling.
Google did not immediately respond to CNET's request for comment.
Android Faithful podcast co-host (and former CNET staffer) Jason Howell is "optimistic" about Gemini replacing Assistant in Google's smart home products.
"In recent years, I have witnessed my Google Home devices degrading in quality and becoming far less useful for even simple tasks and questions," Howell tells CNET. "They've become buggy and unreliable to the point where I've stopped interacting with them for most things."
Gemini catches dog red-handed
At the Mobile World Congress tech show in Barcelona earlier this year, Howell was impressed by Gemini's performance with a smart home camera.
"A smart home camera detected a dog that came into the kitchen to steal a cookie off the counter," Howell recalls. "Through voice interaction, the homeowner could ask the system what happened to the cookie, and, given the video context from the camera and an understanding of what it saw, the system could tell the homeowner that the dog was the culprit.
"This sort of example empowers users to spend less time looking for answers in lieu of simple voice queries that serve them the answer they are looking for with less effort and less time spent."
Google announced last month that Gemini for Home will eventually replace Google Assistant in its smart home devices. You'll still activate Gemini with, "Hey Google," but the advanced AI tech will be able to better interpret more complex and nuanced instructions and questions.
Maybe you're stumped as to what to make for dinner, so it could be: "Hey Google, what quick pasta dish can I cook in less than an hour?" or, "Give me a recipe for Caesar salad." Gemini is also designed to work with thermostats and smart lights, so you might tell it to "turn the temp to 68 degrees" and "turn off all the lights except in the kitchen."
The market for smart home technology is expected to grow by 23% over the next five years, according to Grand View Research.