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What you need to know
- The Google Home team held an AMA on Reddit where users lashed out to express their frustration and curiosity about the app’s development.
- The team teased more features coming to Google Home on the web in the future, saying “additional controls” are on the way.
- Google Home members said there was a “vision and roadmap” behind the development of the app and its features, but no details were given.
The Google Home team held an AMA (ask me anything) on Reddit to answer questions about web availability and devices. While many users took the opportunity to complain, the Google Home team offered a little insight into the future of the platform.
As work progressed, several product managers and engineering managers were on deck answering user questions. One user posted a long post asking about controlling her Google Home on the web, removing the device and assistance in favor of Gemini. In response, his product manager Jacqueline said, “We’re working on bringing additional device control features to the web version of Google Home.”
The team didn’t say much more about what controls users can expect, but the new additions will first appear in public preview. The Home team declined to comment further on the AI onboard the device.
The conversation turned to questions about when Google would introduce offline mode to the Home app. Team member Daniel said, “Our initial focus is to route more interactions locally (thanks to Matter) for reliability and latency benefits.” The post added that once Google determines that there is a “significant” amount of local traffic, it will focus on offering “robust” offline features through the app.
Cohesion, or lack thereof, was also a talking point for some users. Google Home’s Daniel has taken the reins again, saying the team has a “vision and roadmap” to help move the software and product development process forward.
Daniel said the Home team had to create an entirely new UI experience to accommodate the new camera protocol, which he admitted could cause “frustration and pain” for users.
They didn’t share any further information, so there are still questions about what the current roadmap for app development for Google Home is.
We’re the team behind the latest updates for Nest devices and Google Home on the web. Please ask me anything. From r/googlehome
The Home team refuses to reveal its roadmap, but mentioning the Matter connectivity standard for smart homes would be a good starting point. The Matter 1.2 upgrade was released in October 2023 with support for 9 different devices. Additionally, the Matter standard allows smart devices to communicate with each other (locally) without going through companies like Google.
Meanwhile, Google Home’s latest update was rolled out to the web app in early March. This update brings camera history and clip editor to web users. These were features that were highly requested by the community. The latter allowed users to cut clips recorded by the camera and save them for other uses.
This update also makes available a public preview test space for home web users to test new features.
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