What’s happened? After four years without an update, Google Nest was feeling a little stale — but a leak hints at new and refreshed hardware coming down the pipeline.
- According to Android Headlines, a new Google Home Speaker is in the works, alongside a Nest Indoor Cam, Outdoor Cam, and Doorbell.
- The new Google Home Speaker will be powered by Gemini and supports features like Sound Sensing that will listen for breaking glass or a beeping smoke alarm.
- The new Nest Cam Indoor has jumped to 2K resolution with HDR and digital zoom up to 6x.
- The Nest Cam Outdoor and Nest Doorbell are also receiving upgrades to 2K resolution, up to three hours of event previews, and much more.
Why this is important: With the Gemini for Home just around the corner, the timing on this new hardware announcement is far from coincidence. Google Nest is gearing up for another push on the smart home industry and is bringing a much-needed set of upgrades to its lineup.
- Previous Nest devices topped out at 1080p resolution, a much lower number than almost every other device on the market.
- The new devices offer local storage for security footage incase Wi-Fi drops — something Nest has never had before.
- A new feature called Daily Summaries breaks down the major events throughout the day with a short, Gemini-generated video.
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Why should I care? While Google fans have been loyal to the platform, users often lament the lower-quality cameras and video. These upgrades will give the Nest ecosystem greater feature parity with the competition, and the inclusion of Gemini is a wildcard factor that could propel it to even greater heights.
- The features owners have come to rely on, like Garage Door Alerts, Familiar Face Alerts, and more will remain. They’re just going to be complemented by the new additions.
- Nest Aware is being renamed to Google Home Premium Advanced, although details like new features and pricing aren’t yet available.
