According to the sleuths over at Android Authority, the Google Home app is about to get a much-needed feature that I’m honestly shocked hasn’t been added yet: a search bar.
If you’ve never used the Google Home app before, it’s sort of the command center for all things smart home in the Google smart home ecosystem. If you only have a few smart home devices, it’s easy enough to navigate — but if you have an extensive smart home setup, you could have upwards of 50 devices listed in the app. If you don’t take time to organize and label them, it gets unwieldy fast.
The upcoming change was discovered as part of an APK teardown, during which Android Authority looks at in-progress code and tries to discern what it’s for. Some of what is presently in development may not make it to the final release, so take these findings with skepticism.
The above screenshot shows the search bar’s location within the app. Google is also preparing Material You themes for the app to better fit into your phone’s customization settings. According to Android Authority, once this update rolls out, the Google Home app will use your current wallpaper to determine the background color and UI accents.
This change will make it dramatically easier to look through your smart home device list and find exactly what you’re looking for. However, it’s unclear how the search feature will work or its criteria. It’s also worth noting that the search bar follows another big Google Home update that significantly redesigned the app’s thermostat controls.
When setting up a new device, please take a few seconds to give it an easily recognizable name instead of leaving it as the default. It’s hard to remember to search for “Sensor 04027.”
