Google Home, the companion app for controlling your smart home devices, is getting a major update, bringing a revamped home view, new privacy controls, and more.
The most notable change the new update brings is a redesigned home view that makes it easier to control your smart devices in fewer steps. We spotted this redesign last week in an APK teardown of the Google Home app. However, it wasn't accessible to end-users at the time. Google says it's now rolling out this revamped home view to everyone on Android and iOS.
The new UI takes inspiration from Android 11's smart home controls page. It swaps large device icons with rectangular tiles with rounded corners. The tiles are interactive, allowing you to adjust things like volume and brightness by sliding left or right. And just as before, you can still tap on the buttons to turn a device on or off. Meanwhile, long-pressing a button brings up additional controls.
"On both Android and iOS, the new controls help you quickly find and understand the status of the devices in your home so you can dim your compatible lights or change the music volume in a snap. You can also tap to turn a device on or off, slide left or right to make adjustments, and long press for more controls," wrote Google in a blog post.
Next up, the Google Home app is getting new privacy controls in Settings that will allow users to control home activity and Assistant data settings right from within the app.
"Manage your household's settings, including presence sensing to control which devices can help detect if someone's home in order to start Home & Away routines. Browse your data, including your home activity and your data in the Assistant."
Finally, the Google Home app will get a new update that will automatically sort your home's recent and most important events in an updated layout. Events that happen around the same time will be grouped together, so users don't have to scroll through a list of repetitive events. Google says this feature will roll out later this month.
Source: Google Nest Community