Google Home gains more Gemini-powered camera features

Source: Engadget

Updated Camera Experience in Google Home

Google is revamping its smart‑home app, and the latest update focuses on the camera experience. The user interface has been refreshed to allow faster navigation and smoother scrubbing through videos, giving you a clearer view of what your cameras capture.

• Event filtering and sorting: You can now filter events by “Person seen,” “Package seen,” “Glass break heard,” and more.
• Animated thumbnail previews: Thumbnails are animated and focus on subjects, making it easier to see at a glance what the camera recorded. The player window stays visible while you scroll.
• Timeline view: Users with an advanced Google Home Premium plan can access event descriptions in the timeline view. These features, including zoomed‑in thumbnail previews, are also available for older‑generation Nest cameras.

Face Detection Enhancements

Google has refined its familiar‑face detection tools:

• Feedback options: Provide thumbs‑up or thumbs‑down feedback on familiar‑face previews to improve accuracy.
• Quality filtering: Low‑quality captures (blurry or small faces) are filtered out, cleaning up the face library.

New Camera Controls

• Skip navigation: Jump back or forward through event recordings in 10‑second increments.
• Swipe gestures: Switch between the timeline and events, resize the video player by pulling down on the control bar, and close the camera view by swiping down.

Gemini‑Powered Features

Many of these improvements are powered by Gemini. Google has also updated Gemini for Home. Early‑access users are testing a version powered by Gemini 3.1, which brings several enhancements:

• Multi‑step commands: Combine tasks (e.g., adding new items and updating existing lists) in a single command.
• Duplicate‑list prevention: Better identification of similar list names to avoid creating duplicates.
• Improved alarm and calendar handling: Easier management of recurring all‑day events and resolved AM/PM mix‑ups when setting alarms.

“The updated voice assistant can now better handle multi‑step commands,” according to Google.

References

• Enhanced Camera Experience in the Google Home App
• Google now lets you have full conversations with Gemini for Home
• Google Home Update Spring 2026: Home sweet home is now more helpful