Pixelated - Welcome Home, Gemini

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

Welcome to episode 72 of Pixelated, a podcast by 9to5Google. Abner, Damien, and Will reconvene to talk all about Google's recent smart home announcements. From Gemini for Home and Google's revised subscription service to the new Home Speaker and that very, very red Nest 2K smart cam, it's feeling like a fully revitalized smart home platform, and we're here to talk you through every announcement. Subscribe YouTube Podcasts Pocket Casts Spotify Apple Podcasts Overcast Timecodes 00:00 - Intro and Google Home's new app icon 03:00 - Gemini for Home 28:40 - New Nest cameras 33:37 - Google Home Speaker 53:01 - Wrap-up Hosts Abner Li Damien Wilde Will Sattelberg Read more The Google Home Speaker is coming in 2026  This is Gemini for Home and the redesigned Home app, rollout starts today  Gemini coming to original Google Home: What speakers & displays are supported  Google Nest cameras will get these Gemini upgrades, but only if you pay [Gallery] Listen to more 9to5 Podcasts The Sideload 9to5Mac Happy Hour Electrek Space Explored Feedback? Drop us a line at [e-mail], leave a comment on the post, or reach out to our producer.

Welcome to Pixelated episode 72. I'm your host, Will Saddleberg. This week, Avner Damien and I sit down to talk all about Google's new smart home announcements from a redesigned Google Home app and an AI-focused subscription package to Gemini's arrival on legacy hardware. And, of course, that brand new smart speaker coming in 2026, it was a surprisingly busy week for Google. So let's not waste any more time and get ready to it. So I guess like clockwork when we were talking about it, like, last week, we now have a new home speaker, some huge home updates. I'm enamored by the new logo.

I think the new logo is fantastic. It fits in with the rest of the ecosystem that Google's trying to build with their applications. I think that's great. So yeah, that logo, actually, we can spend a bit about the logo because the Monday before Google made this small announcement that the gradient logo, it started with the G in terms of the day. that for Google search, the G-Icon got this gradient redesign, and then it came to Gemini, and then it came to home. But basically, Google was bringing this gradient design that reflects the new AI present, AI future to everything.

So we're only going to see more of this design, less of the sharp lines, the partitioned app icons, and presumably more of this merge. gradient effect. Do you think it's the gradient effect is, I mean, visually I love it. Do you think there's enough of a variation between each icon? Because I know over the last few years, we've had a lot of problems. No, it's only going to get worse.

It's only going to get worse. Oh my God, I just realized that the Google TV logo is not that different from the home. It's a multicolored shape and the second. The Google TV logo gets a blended color. It's just going to be, oh, does this have four sides or five? That's the only difference. Yeah, basically. And I don't think the carers are going to help.

I think the partitions were something that, like, you could draw the distinction between the color sections. But now it's just a merger. So that's going to be fun. I mean, I now feel really bad. You guys have put me in my place for liking the icon. I thought I liked it, too, until I remembered it was going to come to all of them. I mean, when you, I have Gmail and I have the home icon on my home screen, and they do look very different now because of the separation of. colors and stuff like that.

So I kind of want it to be... For now. Yeah, for now, for now, yeah. Let's get into why this is a big deal, though, because obviously home application itself has had a huge update. It's probably going to get a lot of features in the next couple of months that I think we're all... We're kind of talking a little bit last week, Will, about this, that the home application almost has held back a lot of the cool things that the Google Home system can do.

Yeah. Then we have the speaker. We'll get into that a little bit later, because that's coming later on the line. just give me an overview, Abner, because I know you're deep on this, what this new application is going to do for us in terms of like usability, accessibility, and even like launch speed, I've noticed that's a huge upgrade straight away. So zooming out, this new system, I would call it Gemini for, it's called Gemini for Home. This is the new smart home effort for the foreseeable future.

So basically Gemini for home adds Gemini to grew home And as part of that they rebuilt their system to be the underlying architecture to be more stable to be faster Etc cetera etc But I think the real thing that they want to do is to have actual Intelligence versus this structured thing So I guess we can look at it two ways Your choice you understand the voice assistant or do you understand the camera stuff Let's get on to the voice assistant because to me this is the huge thing.

This is the one where I'm really excited. I'm genuinely excited for this because I'm the kind of idiot who talks himself out loud and I love speaking to Gemini like a psychopath. So yeah, LRM's large language models, Gemini models are now powering this full Google Assistant replacement. There's no such thing called Google Assistant anymore. Now it's the trendline. At a point, it does seem that Google, want to keep the Google Assistant brand

around but I think fortunately that's no longer the case they're all in on Gemini and yeah you can like you have been doing on your phones for the past year or so you can ask prompts you can ask questions

commands in any conversational manner you want there's no this command structure this structured way you remembering devices you remembering the name of devices the rooms they're in that's no longer needed. You can just,

the end goal is really just speaking how you would to a person. And I think that's a huge thing. I don't know if you suffer from this will because I think I talked about it last week is that if you don't rename things in your home sensibly, you can just get caught in this kind of Google Assistant limbo where you're asking,

oh, turn on the living room light or turn on the lamp in the corner office. And it doesn't want to play ball. Like I have an enormous amount of devices in my house and the amount of times where I have to rename them because I call it the wrong thing. Or I've closely renamed something like the names are too similar. Like I don't know, office light and office lamp. And the assistant's like, I don't know.

You want the kitchen light on? I don't care. We're going to throw something on. I've fallen into even worse traps where we've lived in this house for like, God, almost three and a half years now. And yet I believe that, you know, there's like like TVs because TVs have shuffled as we moved places. There's like, I think my living room TV is still called like bedroom TV and things like that where it's like, oh, that's not like, I never just went and renamed those things. So

genuinely, anytime I like cast something to a television, I have to stare at the menu of screens and be like, okay, this is, I know this says bedroom TV, but it's in the living room or vice versa. And it's terrible. I feel, yeah, I definitely feel that because I have a lot of, I move my nestubs around. I don't know why. I think it's kind of like, I get an ultimatum and it's like, you have to move this out of this room for my partner. And she's like,

get it out of my site. I don't want to see this. So I have a lot of like Nest devices where I have one in the kitchen, which is still named Office Nest Mini. Exactly. And I have like bedroom nest hub, which is in my living room.

So like once I get to grips with that, that's great. But I feel like, like you said, like you alluded to Abner with Gemini, the way that you can have that natural conversation just to me is going to make my life, makes easier. Yeah, you'll absolutely benefit from how this Gemini, which Google did optimize

from the phone version, is meant to be spatially aware. It's meant to work in, instead of a personal thing on phones, where it's a one-to-one. It's meant to be communal. You're supposed to be able to, anybody in your household is able to interact with it. So those are the two things that Google did to optimize this Gemini for home. So it's, it'll be just, you'll be just, Gemini, though the hot word is still, hey, Google. Do you think they'll have a change? We kind of have rallied about it here, is that we would love to see the hot word changed.

Like, I wonder if there's somewhat sort of like legal ramifications there, you know, changing it to say, I don't know, I'm not even going to say out loud. I've been saying, hey, speaker. And that doesn't activate speakers. Hopefully anyone out there listening. If it did, I'm sorry. like if I wanted the Kotwood to not be hey speaker I could it be I don't know anything else like

within reason yeah yeah I think for I think for my gut I guess this is a more cynical answer from a brandings perspective it would always be hey Google or hey Gemini but it does work that at a certain point there was some it did work like hey Gemini was in active consideration and I don't know maybe they'll still do it but the fact that they have haven't yet. I feel like they're sticking with hey, Google at this point. I thought this, if they were going to do it, this would be the time and they didn't do it. And so I have given a pope as much as I hate the current wake phrase. It just, it feels like it's caught in my throat every single time I say it. Like I'm coughing it up. And, you know, Gemini is a syllable

longer, but it sure rolls off my tongue better. So I really wish, I don't need custom wake words necessarily. I just wish I could maybe toggle between the two the way that, Amazon allows you to toggle between, I think, three presets on Echo devices with Alexa. I would love to see, you know, at the very least, just flipping between these two. But yeah, I mean, they clearly see it as a good branding exercise. And it's hard to argue with that, I suppose. Yeah. So in terms of the functionality, then, this is going to work just like, from what I can see externally,

and I've not dealt too deeply into it. I've kind of had a surface level look at it and have a little bit. of knowledge. But for me, this seems very, very similar to how Gemini is going to get rolled out in Android Auto, which technically is overdue, right? Are we still technically in summer? I'm not sure in the UK. We definitely not. No, summer's over for us here too. They hit the Gemini for TV a week or two back, but the last remaining one is Android Auto. Yeah, because this, obviously, if anyone out there has seen Gemini in Android Auto, go check out. There's a video on the channel that we did a deep eye, we managed to see that our I.O.

The interface and the experience seems very similar from what I can tell to how it's going to work with your smart home speakers. And obviously the closest approximation we have currently is the pixel tablet. And at least from the pixel tablet experience I've been having with Gemini, absolutely fantastic, it is technically a different device with more capable hardware. How is, I know Google is, and they deserve a lot of credit for this, they're going to roll this role specific aspects of Gemini back to the original Google Home, I believe. Is it the original Google Home in 2016? I'd go further in saying that for the most part, so what you're

referring to is Gemini Live is only available for newer hardware. And they insinuated to us that Gemini Live has more complex hardware requirements, which I guess I can see that. But the base Google's experience you're familiar with will be infused with Gemini, will be infused with LMs, those command sets. That's coming to every single device from 2016 onward, from the original Google, everything that Google has made in the past almost decade will be getting that experience.

And that is a significant upgrade. It is a, I don't think that Alexa has been able to match either when during their transition. But yeah, it's good for customers. It's absolutely good for customers. I do definitely want to see what, the original experience on the original Google works like in terms of

those hardways are not from whether they're capable but more so from how they've degraded in the past 10 years in the way that all hardware will degrade in that time span so that should be a very interesting test even my Nestub max I have my eyebrow is raised a little bit

because navigating through the UI alone is laggy and then feels really which is not changing today I hope so you know like I'm waiting to see how that comes through. Yeah, the core Ness smart display UI, we're told it's not going to change. We'll see there was a redesign that they completely finished and never rolled out

the smart displays. Yeah. So that's somewhere. I do feel like this, I mean, as I say, I do think it's a big move for Google to have the, I guess in a lot of ways it's audacity, right? They have the audacity to say, we are going to support our 2016 devices and everything beyond that with the base level of Gemini.

And I do think that is, it's audacious, it's confidence in your product, it's confidence in Gemini. I think the confidence in Gemini there is so such that they can do this. And I think whether or not, whether or not it works,

as we hope it does, hand on heart, I don't think it will work as well on some of these older devices, but I will, I'll be a believer when I say, see it. I think if you can get a Ness Mini, for instance, or a Home Mini that is working with Gemini in any way, shape, or form, it's going to surpass the current experience you have

Google Assistant, right? So I can only see it as a good thing. Like I say, just fingers crossed it doesn't reach a point where people are complaining that their devices are kind of unresponsive. And I don't doubt that they've tested this thoroughly because they're so, what, did they sell 50 million versions of the Ness Mini and Home Mini? And it's, its lifespan. Tens of millions. Yeah, so there's a lot of devices potentially out there. They're going to take advantage of this.

And if Gemini, if it means Gemini supersedes some of the other home assistants, then that is one hell of a gain in just one felt, like one instance. Like, yeah. I'm excited to see just how people react to it. I'm excited because I've been using it on my pixel tablet and it is fantastic at that natural language processing. But I want to see how it integrates directly into a home that's already got like, Because I'm on the low end.

I know Ben as part of the team, he has hundreds potentially of smart home devices. So I want to see his, we'll have to bring him on the podcast and talk about it because I imagine his integration experience is going to be very different from mine with 60 or 70 devices. Yeah. Yeah.

So the voice assistance stuff, it is entering public preview, which it seems like they're renaming to early access towards the end of this month. It's not here yet. But what we do have right now is this other part of Gemini for home, which is basically what Google wants to go from smart cameras to AI cameras. So in short, every video, if you have a lot of smart cams, every video recorded will be accompanied with this AI description, this rich description describing what's going on in the scene, reveraging Google's understanding Gemini's multimiles, multimiliping. And from there, it's meant to power the ability to search, to find out what's been happening in your home, to recap, et cetera, et cetera.

Are you big camera people here? I am, yeah, I have four. I have four in my home. I am, but only when traveling. Like, when we're not here, that's when the cameras get set up. When we're here, because both my, well, I obviously work from home. And then my fiance works from home four days a week. So we are just always here.

And so it's less necessary. But even then we have a doorbell cam and stuff like that. And I really like this idea. I feel like that's a really good use of descriptions, of AI generated descriptions. And Damien, I think I told you this story. I don't think it was on microphone. I don't think we were recording about when I was in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress

and I got like a doorbell alert. Yeah. Yeah. And it was a bunch of. a deer, right? And it was just a bunch of deer right at my front door. And like, you know, the, the, the, the, why somebody at my door at 2.30 in the morning feeling went away when I opened the app. But it would have been even better if the notification had come in and said, there's a bunch of deer you're doing. That would be so funny. I would love that because then there's no heart attack feeling. You,

you, you, you have that sensation immediately. You don't even have to open the video. What if it, what if it, what if it incorrectly identified it as rainier? And they said Santa's at the door. Like, that would be even funny, right? That's like a holiday. That's just a perfect holiday ad. There we go. 100% would. I mean, do we think, like, this is just thinking out loud here,

do we think this is the first phase in Google potentially testing out AI summaries for notifications? Like, because, I mean, obviously, it's slightly different. I hope not. It's slightly down the pipeline and there is hardware relying on it. I just kind of feel like this could be a first glimpse of that. They're definitely tackling something much harder in terms of like you're taking this video, this complex video. a lot of it. High-res has to be processed and all that.

So they're definitely starting at the highest possible difficulty. But the most utility, too, I think. Because, you know, having used notification summaries on iOS in the past, they're terrible. And honestly, I really think that notification summaries are one of those. And I'm open for you guys to disagree with me. But one of those ideas that sounds good at first thought, and then you think about it and you're like, well, I don't really actually struggle to read my notifications that often, especially on Android.

I really don't, I don't find the, you're already shortening something that is relatively short on my display. It's kind of like, you're not saving me any time. If anything, you're just misconstrueing things enough that I have to open the app. Again, this is all based on how Apple does it. No, I absolutely, I do wonder if we're more power user in that regard. We might be. we're capable of process, we process all of information

in the basis. So I wonder that sounds like you're calling people stupid but I agree with you. A lot of people are stupid. No, I think I think, I inferred it, that's all that matters. I think it would be good if Google does if Google does this well with

and I think this is the perfect way to test, if it is a test bed, I mean obviously I'm thinking out loud like I say so I feel like this is the perfect opportunity to do it like you say. a lot of technical overhead here that is needed to summarize video into short snippets. And I mean, if they do it well, which I don't kind of don't doubt that they will because of the way that the current nest notifications work, like obviously familiar faces, they've had a long time being able to do this.

Person detected, package detected. Yeah, person detected, package detected. I think that is a natural step. I'm excited to see what kind of crazy and wonderful, like kind of summaries we get. obviously will, with his 500 reindeer at the door and Santa banging down the windows, like that would be kind of cool. I think it would be cool to see the limits of it. Like, what are the actual limits?

Is there like, because being completely honest, the safety limits as well, right? Like, there could be any number of things that happen outside your front door. Like, how is Gemini going to, and Gemini and Google systems? Well, and that's, I've had people, you know, walk in front of my, you know, to out my neighbor's brother. But like he, there was one night where like he, he was coming back from his car and he like walked like through my yard to get to the house.

And I don't care about that. But it wasn't like two in the morning. And we were, we were on vacation. And I was like. And even even then, you know, doing the opposite of what I,

how I just said, like, I like the idea of these, uh, notification descriptions for, for these videos. It's like, oh,

but like at the same time, if I woke up to a thing that was like, oh yeah, six hours ago, there was a guy at your front of, It would be like, oh, okay, great. I guess I'm going home now. Yeah, that would be terrifying.

In many ways, for the people in the Google ecosystem, this is their first interaction with these AI summaries on a mass scale for something that's very important. Anything that happens in your home is pretty important. So yeah, besides these AI summaries, the other thing, it can figure out what's happening in your home. I think the most interesting example that they gave was, let's say you have a garden, you have cameras pointing at it,

you can ask if somebody ate the leaves, the plants, and Gem and I can go back and tell you that there are rabbits on such and such a day or whatever. I think in theory that sounds fantastic. It really depends to see how it is in practice. And this is the thing that Google is rolling out now, if you join the subscriptions and all that. But yeah, it's, it's this, they're definitely starting on the highest difficulty again.

Yeah. A specific hardware needed for this because I wasn't really clear of how that's going to work. Do you need to have the new AI cameras or do existing hardware? Like I already have a lot of Nest hardware already. Is that kind of, am I going to be able to access this with the premium tier that I'm subscribed to

or do I need to have specific hardware for it? it. So yeah, let's start there in terms, so Google Home Premium, which is the Nestware rebrand, is what they are, what they're transitioning to. Just to spend a second on that, Google Home Premium, bit long, bit, yeah. Yeah, I get what you're saying. Yeah, especially because it's Nest, right, it feels weird. Yeah, then there's technically, it's Google Home Premium standard and Google Home Premium advanced, which four things in the name is too much. But on the other side, if you are a Google AI Pro subscriber or you're paying $20 a month, you do get home premium for free, basically.

It's including a bundle. And to make this a tangent, we're finally seeing AI Pro come together in that. It's a bundle for everything, Google. I still don't think we'll ever get YouTube premium in there. That's another thing. No. They're going to keep that. I had this feeling this morning and I'm curious about what you guys feel.

And maybe this was because I watched the reaction that I knew was, I feel like I've known this was coming for like eight years, right? But like I watched the reaction to the game pass floor kind of falling out, right? And like those prices becoming expensive to the point where a lot of people don't want to pay them anymore. There was a lot of fan-out. Oh, no. What happens when one company buys every single-

studio. Exactly. Right. Well, but like, well, that, that is, we could have a separate podcast on that. But it's, um, I get worried when I see how many things Google is dropping into this $20 a month plan that I'm like, okay, this is going to go up in price eventually. You are, you're bundling so much in to get people onto this AI pro plan that you clearly, I feel like Google clearly doesn't see that like Gemini pro on its own is worth paying $20 a month.

for. So if they just put a lot of stuff into this bundle, I think that it's a good deal currently. I get worried that in two years this bundle is going to be like $40 a month. No, that's interesting because a lot of people like with the Gemini stuff, they don't think that it's worth it right now. And to be fair, they can stay on the $10 plan. Yes, correct. Although they don't, they hide it from you. You got to look for that $10 plan I found out a couple months ago. But it is there. So, yeah, the idea of raising the cost is... I'm a little ahead of myself, right?

Like, it's just one of those thoughts that floated through my head of like, well, this won't be $20 a month forever. And I don't think Google's even, you know, done... I don't think they'll add YouTube premium, but I don't think they're done adding perks to this plan. If they're Fitbit Premium, which is only the case in the UK, which Damon can speak to, would be the last, the main.

So these AI services, Google Home, God, Premium is a whole name, Google Home Premium is at the core. It adds so much AI stuff. Fitbit Premium, when the Fitbit Coach stuff comes, that's also an AI services. So it makes sense to have those three things with the main Gemini app combined. But yeah, we're getting ahead of cells. but I do, the Gemini, the app usage alone, I think I can see that cost rising in the medium term.

Yeah. But yeah, so that's Google Home. That's the way that transition is a straightforward to Google Home premium. It's still $10. Then if you go $10 more, you get all the 24-7 for 10 days, video recording, 60 days,

event history, you get all that. But that's how you start unlocking all the other AI features, like Home Brief, like the camera descriptions, search. And I do wonder how people are going to react to that in terms of 20. You really need $20 to pay $20 to unlock the full features of these new devices. That's one thing that I'm kind of hesitant to do. I think I think I paid a year. yearly fee and it was something like, I think it was discounted, like in the UK, like 50 pounds. So I don't know. I think that's maybe about $65, $70. I'm not sure what the current change is.

If you pay for a year, it's, it's $10 per month for standard $100 per year, $20 for advance or $200. I think, okay, so this is not defending the decision to make it that price to get all of the features. But when we look at it from a security perspective, I think people would, If you're a security conscious person, I think you were happy to pay probably $200 a year for added security,

peace of mind, that kind of thing. But me personally, I'm happy to pay 50 UK or I think it probably will be about 60 or 70 with the annual subscription for the base one

because I don't necessarily, I don't feel like I need all of the extra features. When I start seeing them rolling out, I might feel differently. Yeah. I think, I think it's a peace of mind

kind of thing, but at the same time, I do wonder if there's some way of Google kind of I don't know. I feel like you get this free with the AI Pro right, the AI Procy. Because in the UK that's like £19.50 a month

because I'm considering, I would consider doing that because they get all the benefits of Gemini, all the Gemini updates, all of the features there. And then also this on top with the extras of Fitbit Premium and all of the 24-7 recording

like that I can potentially see but if it's being kind of touted as its own thing which I think is a little bit confusing I wouldn't pay that separately I think with all the extras it is worse Yeah you'd be just go for the bundle $20 a month and the thing with the thing

with other previous upsells and especially with Nestle where before I don't know if people appreciate it, but $10 is getting you a lot of AI processing that Google has to do on its side. These descriptions, media files are very complex. And this is a lot of processing that they're doing on the cloud.

So there is an actual value for all this stuff. But maybe on device, AI will change that in the medium-term future, but we're not there yet, then if you aren't the best possible quality, it has to be in the crowd. And there's a real value to that. But I do wonder if people see that. I do also, you raise a good point

in terms of our own-device processing. Do we ever get a tensor-powered home device? I mean, I wouldn't rule it out at this point in time. I wonder how much that would cost. Yeah. It would have to be something like the pixel tablet again. Yeah, I could see it happen. But as I keep complaining about it.

A full SOC in the camera with cooling with, well, it has the benefit of constant power, but I know, 64 gigs of memory, RAM, all that. That's, I think that would be a true smart camera. I can see it. I can honestly see it happening. I can see it happening. I mean, depending on how many leaps we see from tensor processes of the next, what, five to six years. So let's get into some of the actual hardware then, because there was some announcements here, which kind of, they caught me by surprise initially. I just thought, oh, Gemini's coming to smart speakers, but Google was like, here, have some hardware as well. Throw some hardware in there. Let's get the cameras out of the way. They look exactly. There's a new doorbell.

There's a new NES cam indoor and Nescam outdoor. Looks exactly the same. Google definitely made the point of saying that you can easily upgrade all your stuff with the existing mounts and all that. 2K is the big cell here from 1080P. It's not the 4K of the past, but 2K seems like a good compromise in terms of people's bandwidth. But yeah, so books same.

There's this very red, berry color, which is a bit much. I do wonder if it's like meant to purposely scream, I have a security camera. Maybe, maybe like warning people are. I was trying to figure that out too, because I had the same thought of like, I don't know, I usually want, if I'm going to put up a camera, I want it to blend in to the surroundings. I don't want it to be immediately apparent, but maybe there's, maybe people feel differently about that. It always sucks that the black ring is already so noticeable when you get it head on and they don't make it smaller or whatever, but I don't know, very seasonal colors, maybe. That's a good point. I do agree there's probably

some sentiment that having a bright red camera means it can't be misconstrued as anything else. Like maybe there's a reason why they've made it that color. But it's a nice color. I can't deny that. We complain that Google doesn't make enough red products and red kind of colors. And they've done it with a camera of all things, which is... I was going to say, I don't know if this is what I've met when I was to like make more red devices. You want a red pixel?

No, here have a nest indoor cam bright red. Like it seems a bit like counterintuitive. But hey, at least they know, we know they can make a lovely red color. Whether or not is the product we want it to be. I mean, the biggest disappointment, is I know that Google said they were not going to do the next doorbell wired for outside of the US. I'm a little bit disappointed that I can't get a wired

doorbell here apart from the first gen still. I'll see health. So I guess the context of them making new home hardware is that they obviously retreated from the thermostat outside the US, which is a real shame. They cited the UK and European, I think complexities was the word they used that we'll see. But they are all in on cameras.

I'll give them that. and it's like it is an easier thing for them to sell so hopefully they will expand it over time especially if this Gemini thing gives them a meaningful boost if the AI stuff is a meaningful competitive differentiator versus Amazon and whatnot yeah yeah I mean there is there was a lot there's a lot of hardware out there isn't I think obviously Google needs to keep putting out cameras in a lot like just logically because Amazon drops like 50 different variations of every single camera that has ever existed.

This week. Yes, this week's. The timing, we'll get on the timing a bit, but I think a wordy mentioned to the US is this Walmart on stuff. $20 home indoor camera, $50, was it doorbell? It's $50 to $20 hardware,

which is crazy cheap. In essence, Walmart, like the streaming devices, is making the hardware. the mass, consume, affordable hardware, and it does look like they're offloading,

all the processing, all the software to Google, which honestly good, because they have the expertise. Do you think people are going to be annoyed about a 2K thing? I know you briefly mentioned it. I think my thought process is,

obviously now, again, thinking out loud, I tend to do this a lot on this podcast, which is a bad thing. Good for entertainment, I guess.

The idea that you'd have a 2K video when we're in a 4K video era, seems silly. But I guess it's just my first thought is the bandwidth processing when everybody in the States has gigabit internet

we can reassess but I don't think we're there quite there yet. I mean most of the time 1080p is fine right like I've seen some 4K cameras and not all 4K cameras are made equally

I think there's some less to 1080p cameras than there are our 4K cameras so I don't have like looking at it logically like that I don't have as much of a problem but I can understand why people would but then a 2K image that's processed and has contextual information is always going to be better than

a raw 4K image that has no kind of data points, I think. I'd also think I'd take just a better 2K sensor over a worse 4K sensor just overall. Like if it's better in low light especially, like I think that's more important to me. Let's get into this one final piece of hardware then that I think is the biggest talking point. we're finally getting this new speaker that was kind of half teased a few months ago. Yeah. With Lando Norris, like, first thoughts, go. The timing is, it's not coming to the spring.

They, the way they phrased it is, in their point of view, they're giving Gemini, Gemini to every, all existing users first, which is, that's a charitable interpretation. The more cynical one is, they are way to. thing for every existing customer to beta test it so that by the time it launches in the spring, it's the best possible experience for the new Google

home speaker, generic name, but straightforward, I guess. Yeah, I really wish, because I did a whole thing on it on this show, that it was ready for the holidays, because I think that this is custom-billed. This kind of stuff. Exactly. It's built to be

I hesitate to say stocking stuff for it because $100 is a little expensive for that, but it's, it's not far off the price that you would want of like, oh, well, I need to get somebody a gift. Like, here's like a really easy layup. Like it's a, you know, it's presumably a good speaker. If it's got all the smart stuff behind it, you know, especially if it's someone like maybe a decade ago, you got them the original Google Home. And sure, you'll get that new, but this should be a much better device overall, including more modern. And so, and better looking, I think, than the original home design. So, you know, I think that's really my biggest frustration here is that I just, I, I agree with you, Abner. I agree with your more cynical take that I think this is mostly

about, you know, being slow to roll this out to make sure it's as, it's as, ready for prime time as possible, especially ready for new hardware. But it feels like a real missed opportunity. I almost wish that it was out with a similar early access program with the full experience coming in April. But I think if they had done that, the three of us would be complaining about it too. So maybe there was no winning here. Yeah, I get the impression that it is a no-win situation.

release this kind of hardware because it's what is it nearly, it will be six years, six years, almost since they released a previous one, which is insane to think out. Like, as over with the company that pioneered, I nearly said the phrase out loud then, the, hey speaker phrase, I feel like, yeah, it's almost like they've allowed Alexa to kind of power through and capture a huge portion of the market. And obviously I understand that Amazon is very different because they're more of a, the less of a service company than Google. But yeah, so how long is it from now?

It will be potentially, I'm potentially seeing us on storefront. So, March, 2026. I think it says on the Google store in Australia, I think, somewhere like that. So five-ish, six-six months nearly? Five to six months, yeah. It's a bit of a long time. Like, to what you were saying, Will, about the shopping. Like, only early adopters are going to buy this in March.

Right. Exactly. Maybe. Yeah, but does that allow, you make a good point there. If it's early adopters in March, does that mean by the Christmas period in the following year, 26? The prices is way cheaper. We're getting it at like $30, 40.

Or, or, or. We'll do that, I imagine. Any early bugs are worked out too. Maybe that's, maybe that's the idea with this. But then I still kind of, it's a speaker. They should know how to make a solid speaker at this point. I, I, I agree. I, I guess I'm just trying to figure out, I'm trying to square it, if, if all of that is

accurate and that's kind of their thinking behind it. Then I don't really understand the such an early announcement now beyond I guess that they have all of this other support ready to go and the B2 announced the new hardware alongside it. Honestly, they could have announced it an I-O

and made that a big thing. If they wanted a mid mid-year cycle for hardware, the speaker would have absolutely read that with same day of their ability or whatever. I guess they are announcing it so that they can have a complete family, but I don't know.

It's a shame. We obviously want to play with things now. But this speaker, it's Gem, it's Gemini engineered for Gemini. There's a new white ring at the bottom, which especially comes into play for Gemini Live. That's the, oh, we really haven't talked about Gemini Live yet. You need to subscribe. You need to be on that Google Home Premium.

AI Pro, whatever, to get to Gemini Live. Everybody, it's free on phones, paid on smart home. That seems a little bit backwards. But then again, I guess the amount of, I don't know, where do you think Gemini Live has been accessed the most? I think it probably would be accessed in succession. That's a weird way to phrase it. But say you're in the kitchen, and Google gave some examples in the kitchen,

if you cook every single day, you're going to potentially be talking to Gemini Live for upwards of an hour, two hours, potentially in the kitchen. Yeah, especially since you can keep it open that long. Yeah, so you can keep that free, you can keep that kind of session open for a long period. Whereas on your phone, it feels more like you would do it sporadically. Yeah.

20 minutes here, 20 minutes there, 10 minutes here. I wonder if they see the phone as a gateway, right? Get users into the idea of using Gemini Live for these 10, 15, 20 minute periods, whatever they are. and then be like, hey, you know, if you have an existing Nestom Max or you upgrade to this new Google Home Speaker, right? Like you have options here. You can get this experience in your house

whenever you want without having to grab your phone or keep your phone like, you know, nearby. Like, it can just be there. You don't have to worry about battery usage on your phone or whatever. All this stuff. And all you have to do is, you know, pay us. All you have to do is pay us. I wonder if there's another thing here at play

that they might be working on currently. What if they did handoff for Gemini Live? You're on a conversation on your phone. You continue that conversation, because that's going to have to happen at some point, right? Is this the way that they kind of do that? They bridge that gap. It's like, okay, eventually there's going to come a point

we have to pay for this because you want to carry your conversations on on your home speaker and around the home. Because I could see that being really, really popular. That is like her, the film, which we all talk about whenever we talk about these AI, chat on AI. Nobody has watched the bloody ending apparently.

neither here. Or everybody has conveniently forgotten how that movie ends, but whatever. Anyways, to your point. Okay, so other grants zooming out, there's Gemini and this Gemini Live. Gemini has a voice experience on speakers. It's exclusively a voice experience in this Gemini Live, which I think Google's best branding is to familiarize people with it. It's to say you're having a phone call or Gemini.

in the long term I don't think these two things stay separate it doesn't it's I think there's too much confusion and cognitive road for people to have why are there two different voice experiences

maybe the phone call is what sells it to them as one as that's a deeper experience but I have to feel in the long term that they get combined that you just get one voice experience and with that to take

to the logical extreme, when it becomes combined, I know this is probably a few years down the road, how are you going to tear that, how are you going to make people pay, realize they have to pay for something different? To me, it's a bit, paying for Gemini Live seems like a bit much in this current iteration.

Yeah. I mean, how many people are relying on Gemini Live to the point where they would pay for it, paid $20 a month just to have Gemini Live on a speaker, they've then paid another $100 for and potentially bought multiple because I don't know that is a big

expectation for people to be paying to have an experience like that I think you can see why people potentially be annoyed I've seen there's comments on on site at the moment where there's obviously some people fall on the side

of it's potentially going to be worth of money and some people say it's absolutely complete waste of money But yeah, there's a lot of question marks just in general about AI, and I do wonder what the end goal is for a lot of these companies. Like, can they continue to give away certain things for free and then expect people to pay? Like, I don't know.

I think I would be more inclined to do it for professional reasons, not for personal reasons. Do you know what I mean? Like to access certain tools, it's highly unlikely that I do it just because I can follow a recipe because I have recipe books that I don't read as it is. So it would force me to go analog as opposed to digital. So it's going to be fascinating,

see what happens in this next six months, how the opinion kind of ebbs and flows as people see this hardware. I think a lot of people were desperate for hardware. Like we talked about multiple times on the podcast, are they desperate enough to pay to get access to Gemini Live? And are they desperate to pay and then not get access to Gemini Live? I don't know.

Well, it's full circle, right? Like it's it's it's exactly why Google is adding Why Google's AI Pro plan has other perks to it Because it they know that nobody is Or very few people are going to just pay for You know improved chemini performance right now So this is very much like the the ground work being laid for You know the next 10 20 years of of what Google sees as its strategy towards monetization

The question is can they pull it off And I don't think we have any way of knowing because I don't think right now that these assistants are really worth paying a monthly subscription fee on their own. I think it's nice that you get this along with a ton of other perks, including cloud storage and this new home plan and so on and so forth. But yeah, I don't know. I really am curious to see when Google finally gets it to the point, if Google can get it to the point, where people want to pay. for for the service even maybe on its own maybe that you know who knows what these subscription plans look like and at the same time google also has to keep in mind uh that they need to overcome not just um these early days of of gen a i but also subscription fatigue in general right they're they're not

just going up against you know chat gpts 20 dollar a month plan but they're they're going up against the fact that you have Netflix and Disney and all these other, in Spotify and all these other companies taking a chunk of your income every month for the services they provide. And those are not getting cheaper either. And so I, I'm curious to see where this all ends up because I could see it succeeding. I could see it kind of spinning its wheels for a while. I don't know. Yeah. I suppose that comes back to the Google Assistant. The Google Assistant kind of stagnated for a long period of time. And obviously that's because Gemini was going to supersede it. There's not going to be much that supersedes Gemini. So it's kind of like a war of attrition with people,

I guess. Yeah, I mean, we're going to be here talking, discussing it, and ruminating over these thoughts all the time. But let me talk about the hardware, because I want to get into this, what do you guys think, guys think in terms of the design of it? Because to me, there's a couple of press shots of this where they're using a yarn fabric cover, and it literally looks like a ball of yarn with a string of, like, yeah, it is yarn. It's not a word I would use in England. I think it would be more like just thread, but it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's so generic. It's hard to describe. I'm annoyed that the HomePod Mini comparisons are pretty apt. Like, I'm annoyed that, like, it was like, what? No, it looks, it looks like a Nest Wi-Fi or whatever. It just covered in,

this finish. And then I pulled up, I, like, I pulled up an image of the HomePod Mini to refresh my memory because I don't have one. And I was like, oh, I see it. I do see the comparisons. Yeah. Just upside down HomePod Mini. Yeah. Basically, it's covered in, all of it is covered in fabric, but the base with the aforementioned light ring. It is pretty generic. Yeah. Pretty, pretty generic. I mean, it is, I mean, it stayed true to the original Nest Mini in, in that it's got a massive head. It's like inflated, isn't it? It's like an inflated Nest Mini, like a big bulbous head on it. I don't if you guys ever played the theme hospital, but it reminds me of theme,

or three points hospital, they have like a, oh yeah, you treat guys who get a big inflated head, it reminds me of those. It looks like someone took a bike pump. Yeah. I think,

I think, I mean, it speaks to Google's kind of hardware design team because they do tend to make things that fit into a specific in-home decor style, which I like,

I mean, my partner likes it as well, so it's kind of like it fits into your home decor, but there's some pretty garish colours for, I mean, we finally get that red, which is kind of going to be cool, I guess. But I love seeing the press shots because it's like, it's in a kitchen on a tiled floor. It's like, why would you put the speaker there? That would be terrible.

The audio would sound horrendous. Why would you do that? But the light bar, I mean, is that going to work when you're not interacting with Gemini Live or is that just for Gemini Live? That's one thing I'm questioning because I quite like the fact that I'm sure they'll give us controls to turn it off. I probably won't have it active because it will just be really, really irritating in darkened rooms. Yeah, I guess to me it's, it is one of those products that is designed to kind of

just blend into the background. And I am curious about how the, the, the, the, the RGB ring like adds to that because it feels at odds with the goal of the rest of the design kind of not being something you notice ever, right? And, and so, but, but you need it. At the same time, you need, some kind of visual indicator to represent all of these, these actions and all of these other, you know, all of Google's other rivals use this same idea. And Google has basically done the same thing in the past with lights on top of the speaker, anything like that. You know, I don't know. I'm curious, I guess if as long as I can like kind of customize how that light shows up,

even if it's not fully off, but I can, yeah, can adjust the brightness. can can maybe even oh even if it was just like oh just like you know when we hit when we hit sunset time like local sunset time maybe it goes into a dim mode or something i would that would probably be appreciated but i don't know the design's okay like like comparisons aside like it kind of just looks like the generic idea of a smart speaker of the last 10 years like this is what they've all sort of morphed into um i i would like to see more colors i hope especially with such a weight. Like I kind of wish Google was launching this with like eight colors to really,

you know, blend into the idea of like, this will match your, we have a way to make this match your room. And the way, didn't they, but the original home didn't have replaceable. Yeah, bases. And they sold a bunch of them. And I,

that would have been a smart idea to kind of bring back in some way. But absent that, I'd like to see more colors than, you know, our living room is fairly navy blue. themed. The red one would maybe work okay because there is an accent color to that. But, you know, I'd like to see some blues. I'd like to see, you know, maybe if you wanted to make more bold colors, purples or pinks or something, you know, especially for for kids. I, or, you know,

although there's privacy things. I'm putting that aside. You know, for a kid's room or something, I think that would be, that would be cool. But, but I think these are a good start. I do really like, it wouldn't work in my, it would work in my kitchen, actually. But the, that teal color or what of the jade, of course, of course, it's jade this year. The jade looks nice, but, but yeah, I don't know. It is, it is what it is. It's a smart speaker. Yeah.

Do you think Google, I think Google might have designed themselves into a corner with this because they pioneered that like fabric covered speaker. They did. The original Ness mini, at home mini, sorry. Well, that was why I was so hesitant to even give into those HomePod comparisons because I was like, well, Google was, Google already did finishes like this. So then I was like, oh, but I do, I get it. But, but yeah, I don't know.

I, um, I don't know. I, I, I guess this is just what smart speakers are. And, uh, somebody else will have to come along to be a little more daring if, if we're ever going to see this sort of look change. Well, like, I mean, there's only one of the thing that I really thought was, was massively notable here is Google clearly is like kind of standing by the sound of these. Because it's a smaller speaker. It's not as big as a Nest audio.

So this is the device that is finally going to be able to do that two speaker pairing with your Google TV screener, which we've expected for so long. I don't know. I'm so curious at the size of it's allowed enough for that. Yeah, that's that is a big question because like people have clamoured, people have wanted this for so long. We see it in our comment section all the time. When is it going to come to the nest audio? It was promised so long ago, or it was T so long ago. Like, if they're going to do this with smaller speakers, they're going to have to back it up with high quality sound, right?

So there must be something here that we're, I know, not that we're missing because we haven't able to hear this or see this in person. I'm hoping that like any smart speaker, it lives and dies by its sound. If you're going to be putting music on it and you're putting potentially movies and the TV shows through these speakers in a stereo pair, hey, Google has got to back it up. And I hope that much like their audio products of the last few years have improved a lot. This is the one that I'm guessing, six years, but. people have waited for this. They want some decent audio. So two tiny little speakers in your living

room, are you going to do it? Are you going to like, I don't think I will. I mean, I wouldn't be allowed to. So I'll leave it at that one, I think. Theoretically, Google just has to sound, just has to make this experience sound better than every $200 soundbar on the market, right? That is, that's the bar they have to beat. And if they can, if they can offer a better experience than every 200, even maybe a little more expensive, $250 sound bar. And that's, that's, you know, especially these days, like relatively budget for sound bars, to be honest.

Like, I don't, you know, I don't think that goal is out of reach. But if they can't hit it, then I can't, I can't imagine recommending anybody go out and build this experience for themselves. And we won't know what that sounds like until, you know, March or April. So. Yeah. Yeah, so all we know so far is spring 2026. It looks like according to some of the Google stores around the world that it might be March 2026.

Don't quote us on that. It's something that a commenter has said online on the Australia store. I could see that. Maybe alongside like whatever pixel 10A launches like because we saw the 9A arrive in March this year. Yeah, that would make sense. Google seems to, you know, maybe like that early spring slot right now. Yeah. I think it's good.

They've got a decent group of. countries that are going to get this first, I imagine it'll be available a bit more widely and if you want, I'm guessing, legal restrictions due to Germany and stuff. So, US, Canada, UK, Republic of Ireland, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Finland, Finland, Finland, Austria, Japan, Australia and New Zealand to begin with. I think that's a pretty solid group because I know the original Google Home Mini, I mean, it's nearly decade ago and tech has changed a lot since then, was not available quite as widely. but yeah, $99.

I think it's about £99 or equivalent everywhere else. What more can we expect from it? I don't really know. I think maybe 10 peer expectations. I'm excited to see what happens. I'll probably pick it up in that. I might pick it up in that really garish red,

just to say I have it. Maybe put it on my shelf and speak to it on a day-to-day basis. But yeah, that's the Google Home. There's a hell of a lot of smart homes talk there, right? and I'm sure we'll get to grips with things over the next few weeks. If you're on the public preview, or if you're not, go and do that on your device right now. I think is it tap your profile icon,

up them on the home app, and then you can join the public preview to potentially get the new update and a few other extras as well. But yeah, love talking smart home because I'm a smart home guy, but thanks for joining me, guys. I really, really appreciate it. And yeah, we'll be back with more smart home content, hopefully in the coming weeks and months.

He'll have it until everything launches, so keep talking about it. Of course, of course. Cheers, guys. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to Pixelated, a 9-to-5 Google podcast. If you enjoyed the show, we ask that you rate and review it on the podcast platform of your choice and help spread the word by sharing the show with friends or on social media.