Google dismantled Nest — can Gemini save what’s left?

This week, Google announced that it has finally completed moving “the best” of its Nest-branded smart home devices from the Nest app to the Google Home app. This means users of Google Nest hardware shouldn’t have to bounce between two apps anymore and can finally delete the Nest app. (The “best” qualifier is doing some heavy lifting, and some features are still in Google’s Public Preview beta program.)

The fact that one of the world’s largest tech companies took over three years to move a handful of devices into a new app is, frankly, astonishing. Combined with the slow, painful death of Nest hardware, you’d be forgiven for thinking Google had given up on the smart home. But, with a major Gemini-infused Google Home hardware announcement teased for October 1st, something is coming. The question is: will it be too little, too late?

The last five years have been trying ones for anyone committed to the Google Home ecosystem and Nest hardware. From discontinued products and increased subscription prices to the removal of features and declining performance of Google Assistant on Nest smart speakers, there hasn’t been a lot to be happy about, as also evidenced by the Google Home “rant and complaints” megathread on Reddit.

Behind the scenes, the Google Home team has been refocusing its efforts on software, with an ongoing revamp of the Google Home app, which is much improved and now accessible on more surfaces (TVs, widgets on tablets and phones). But Google’s hardware efforts seem to be stuck in reverse.

While it continues to keep the iconic Nest Learning Thermostat alive with a fourth-generation model and a new form factor, Google is winding down sales of the third-gen on its site and has discontinued support for earlier models. The company has also discontinued the Nest Protect smoke and CO alarm (still the greatest smart home gadget I’ve ever owned), the Nest Secure alarm system, the Nest x Yale Lock, and the Nest Cam IQ series.

These were category-defining products that helped make the smart home feel actually smart. Now, all the Nest devices designed and developed by cofounders Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers and their team are gone.

In their place, we’ve been handed watered-down substitutes, made with Google’s “blessing,” but none of Nest’s ingenuity or focus on design. The new Yale Smart Lock with Matter feels plasticky and uninspired compared to the sleek, metal finishes on the Nest x Yale Lock — and it doesn’t integrate with Google’s replacement for Nest Secure, the ADT Plus system, in the same way. (Unlocking the Nest x Yale could disarm your Nest Secure system; to do that with ADT, you need a different Yale lock.) ADT’s system is also very different from Nest Secure, especially in terms of features and implementation.

The First Alert SC5 smoke alarm that Google now recommends as a Nest Protect replacement is smart, comes in battery and hardwired models, and can be swapped out for your old Protect (it uses the same backplate and interconnects with Nest Protects). But it can’t match the Protect’s clean design, clever path light, or the way that it doubled as a presence sensor in Google Home.

It’s been maddening to watch Google dismantle the excellent hardware and roadmap it inherited when it bought Nest, while simultaneously trying to make its Google Home app into a viable smart home platform. The ideal smart home is an open one, where all products work together regardless of manufacturer — but it’s undeniable that ecosystems work best when the products within them are specifically designed for them. That’s what Google had with Nest. And that’s what it’s spent the last half-decade breaking.

Then there are the Nest smart speakers and displays. Google hasn’t released a new one since 2021, and the current crop is in bad shape, largely due to the slow deterioration of Google Assistant as Google shifts to Gemini. Users have complained that basic commands have stopped working, routines misfired, and responses were slow or incorrect. It got so bad that Google Home’s chief product officer, Anish Kattukaran, publicly apologized. There’s even an investigation into a potential class-action lawsuit.

Not innovating on its home speakers has been a massive miss. They are the gateway to the smart home — and now the most obvious way for Google to put its Gemini AI in front of millions of people, especially with ChatGPT ubiquitous on smartphones. The launch of the Pixel Tablet in 2023 — a device I’ve heard was meant to be a Nest Hub but was watered down into something no one needed — was our first hint that Google Home lacked a clear hardware strategy or significant support from Google as a whole.

That could be about to change. Leaks, some direct from Google, suggest new Nest security cameras and doorbells, as well as a smart speaker, are coming on October 1st. I’d also like to see a new smart display, but I’m not hopeful considering the Pixel Tablet debacle. In a further move away from Nest, the speaker will reportedly revert to the Google Home branding — the name of Google’s first smart speakers before the company acquired Nest.

It makes sense that speakers and cameras are now the hardware categories Google is focusing on — they’re where it can most easily inject Gemini, which is all Google seems to care about right now. Cameras, in particular, will be integral to any broader LLM-powered smart home efforts. AI vision language models are the hot new thing, as they can provide that crucial piece of the smart home puzzle: context. This is something Google has already begun to add to existing Nest cameras, and we’re also seeing it with Amazon’s Alexa Plus and Ring. Rumors that Apple will make cameras for Apple Home also fit this trend.

However, beyond a Gemini injection, it doesn’t sound like the Nest cams will be getting a big refresh, just a resolution bump to 2K. That’s a shame, as Google hasn’t updated them significantly since 2021, and those models were downgrades from the IQ line. One area where Google has remained more competitive is in video doorbells. While not as good as the original Nest Hello, its wired doorbell is my top pick.

As for Gemini in the Home, Google’s LLM-powered glow-up for Google Home, I’m skeptical that it will be its savior. While more conversational voice assistants are a huge upgrade, so far, LLMs have struggled with the basic smart home stuff — turning on lights, running routines, playing music. Even if Gemini nails it, Google still needs good hardware to put it in people’s homes. That’s what it had with Nest.

For longtime Nest users such as myself, it’s been painful to watch the smart home platform we bought into get stripped for parts. Nest hardware was the gold standard for years: cohesive, elegant, and mostly reliable. Google’s new strategy — to be the software that runs the smart home and rely on third-party hardware outside of cameras and hubs — may make sense in the interoperability era of Matter, but it leaves its loyal customers behind.

Today, if you want a solid, hardware-led ecosystem, you’re better off looking at Ecobee, which is building out a thoughtful, albeit smaller, suite of hardware, or Aqara, which has dozens of affordable, innovative gadgets and is fully committed to Matter.

An open Google smart home platform, powered by Matter and Gemini, sounds good in theory and aligns with the company’s broader strategy. But I’m still struggling to move past the fact that Google squandered one of the best hardware ecosystems in the industry. The original Nest is dead. Whether Google Home can live up to the name is still very much an open question.