This is a make-or-break year for Google’s smart home line-up

Google’s smart home line-up has been in limbo since 2024, when the company introduced the Google TV Streamer and Nest Learning Thermostat. But on paper, the ecosystem has been stalling for far longer than that. We only had the Pixel Tablet, Nest Wifi Pro, and Nest Doorbell in the two years prior, and the last time Google ever thought about putting a smart speaker or display in our homes was in 2021 with the Nest Hub (2nd gen).

While updates to the Google Home app have made it more interesting to use, that was a laudable improvement in 2023. We’re three years later now, and all we have to show for it is an app that works slightly better, has nicer automations, and… Gemini?! I guess we have Gemini. Yet, complaints about the entire Google Home ecosystem, from speakers to voice assistants, have been deafening, especially considering the number of bugs and issues we’ve all run into.

It’s no secret, then, that 2026, with the promised launch of Google’s new Home Speaker and Nest Cams, as well as the rumored Google Home Display, the company is facing a pivotal moment in its smart home commitment and future.

Gemini has been out in preview on existing Google Home and Nest speakers and displays for a while now, and the feedback has been anything but mitigated. I recently got access to the preview program, adopted Gemini on the two Nest Audios, one Nest Hub (2nd gen), and one Pixel Tablet in my home, and I said I wanted a refund.

While the promise of Gemini on a smart speaker is awesome, the reality ended up being a series of hiccups and slowness that rivaled and surpassed Google Assistant. Every question takes more time, and every answer is unpredictable. Gemini takes forever to answer me sometimes, and sometimes just ignores me and doesn’t even answer. It might give me a long reply, it might go short, and it might just do a quick beep to acknowledge a smart home command. Plus, Assistant had one specific way of answering queries about the weather or my calendar; Gemini can come up with different structures every time, throwing me for a loop because I have to be completely focused on what it’s saying so I don’t miss the crucial part of its answer. Oh, and I still have the issue where the wrong speaker keeps answering.

I’m not denying the potential of Gemini on a speaker — I got to try commands I was never able to perform with Assistant and ask questions and get proper answers instead of random webpages read out to me. But the slowness and unpredictability make the experience so much worse. I need my voice assistant to disappear, not to take center stage in my interactions.

Gemini Live also feels life-changing on a speaker because it becomes an ambient discussion “buddy” I can converse with, but so far, I haven’t been able to make the most of it. It seems like the earliest version of Live, where I could only speak in one language and ask general information, i.e., it lacks personal context and multiple language support like on my phone. Worse yet, I keep running into the issue where the lack of multiple account support ruins my Gemini experience because I have to choose whether to put my personal account or my work account on my speakers, and neither of them knows the context of the other one.

I don’t know how much the new Google Home Speaker’s updated hardware can improve in this mostly cloud-based experience. Maybe it’ll make some difference, but until Google tightens the entire experience, makes it more fluid and more reliable, squishes all these repetitive and annoying bugs, I’m not willing to cry victory. I’m not blindly trusting the claims; I need to be convinced that this is a good experience. I already entrusted my smart home to Google until it fell apart.

I want nothing more than a brand new Google Home Display in my kitchen to replace my aging, slow, and sometimes unresponsive Nest Hub (2nd gen). But Google’s dwindling support for the Nest Hub, all the features it has removed, the interminable work on Fuchsia only for its rollout to be so insignificant, and many other missteps have soured my experience with Google’s displays.

Meanwhile, companies like Amazon have forged on and cornered the market of smart displays. The Echo Show line-up always has a new element, and each time I visit my friend who has a larger unit, I envy how cool and responsive it is. Apple is also forever rumored to enter the space with its own smart display.

Google has a lot of work cut out for it to convince me and others that its smart displays are still worth buying and using. I need a faster and more responsive unit that lets me run some apps without using voice commands for everything, a proper smart dashboard inspired by Gemini’s Daily Brief and Spark (with elements of the new Google Home favorites widget), visual answers to my questions that emulate Gemini’s new capabilities on mobile, and definitely a proper update commitment, similar to what Pixel phones receive. I don’t want to walk in only for Google to pull the rug in a year or two when it realizes its latest smart home push isn’t paying off.

A few years ago, Google tried to branch out its smart home presence with more Nest devices, such as a security system and a door lock, but it seems like the company has pretty much decided to count its losses and focus on what people love from the Nest brand: cameras and thermostats. Beyond that, we still have the routers and the Google TV Streamer, and that’s just it.

I don’t necessarily think we need more Google hardware, especially if it’s going to be neglected and abandoned. I’d rather the company stick to what it knows it can support long-term. However, I still need to see more interesting propositions from Google in this regard. A more privacy-centric camera with a physical privacy shutter and a way to only save videos locally would be excellent, but alas, the entire Nest Cam business model relies on the cloud and a paid subscription, so I’ve gone with a TP-Link Tapo cam instead. A proper upgrade to the Nest Wifi routers should be coming soon, too, to keep up with the latest Wi-Fi specs.

I also have my eyes wide open, focused on what Google is doing to its Google TV platform. The latest updates announced for the platform are capital-B Bad. YouTube Shorts and more AI on the homescreen are not what I want to see when I turn on my TV, and whatever direction the company decides to go in next will seal the deal for the platform’s future. Many TV manufacturers have already abandoned Google TV, and drastic changes like these might force even more to flee. I might even abandon my Streamer if I see that the experience has become annoying.

Essentially, what Google needs to do is to treat its existing line-up of smart home products properly and make up for all the goodwill it’s lost over the last few years of abandonment and bugs. Will it do that in 2026? I wish we’d get a proper positive evolution for the company’s entire smart home ecosystem, but my bet is we’ll be… whelmed. Not over, not under, just whelmed.