Alongside the impending arrival of the smart-home-focused Pixel Tablet, Google will soon release a much-needed redo of its Home app, while Google home users on iOS will soon be able to control Matter devices.
Slated to begin rolling out Thursday, May 11, the new Google Home app arrives with five tabs, starting with a Favorites tab where you can pin your oft-used smart devices and automations.
The Favorites tab will also let you check your Spaces, which groups your devices into categories, such as lights, cameras, Wi-Fi, and climate.
The Devices tab will show the familiar view of your devices grouped by room, while the Activites tab details noteworthy events such as motion events captured by your Nest cameras.
Automations, including household and personal routines, get their own dedicated tab, while a Settings tab makes it easier to tweak the functions of your various devices.
Finally, the Inbox will notify you of issues and/or problems with your smart devices, reminders about subscriptions (such as Nest Aware), and other odds and ends.
The revamped app will also offer an improved overview of your cameras, with all your camera feeds available from the Cameras Spaces section of the app. You can pin camera feeds to the Favorites tab, as well.
The revamped Google Home app lets you pin camera feeds to the Favorites tab.
Google adds that the redesigned Home app will be adding support for first-generation Nest cameras–eventually.
Public Preview users of Home will be able to access the first-gen Nest Cam Indoor starting in July, with the original Nest Cam Outdoor coming later.
Older Nest cams will be integrated into the general release of the Home app in “the coming months,” Google said.
Meanwhile, iOS users of Google Home will finally be getting Matter support. That’s slated to happen as soon as Apple rolls out iOS 16.5, which is expected next week.
Google’s news about Matter support for iOS users comes about a week after Amazon announced that the Alexa app for iOS was adding Matter support.
Author: Ben Patterson, Senior Writer
Ben has been writing about technology and consumer electronics for more than 20 years. A PCWorld contributor since 2014, Ben joined TechHive in 2019, where he covers smart speakers, soundbars, and other smart and home-theater devices. You can follow Ben on Twitter.