The newest generation of Google Home and Google Nest devices marks the platform’s biggest architectural shift in years, pivoting entirely around the capabilities of the new Gemini for Home AI. This initiative is designed to move the smart home from simple voice commands to natural, contextual collaboration, upgrading everything from smart speakers to doorbells.
The launch includes the Google Home Speaker and three new wired security devices: the Nest Cam Indoor (3rd gen), the Nest Cam Outdoor (2nd gen), and the Nest Doorbell (3rd gen).
The New Google Home Speaker: Audio Meets Gemini
The new Google Home Speaker replaces the Nest Audio, delivering a balanced audio experience in a compact form. It features a vertically firing driver that ensures consistent, 360° audio, allowing users to enjoy uniform sound regardless of the speaker’s placement in the room.
The device is physically designed for the AI era. It includes a new light ring that provides expressive visual feedback—a dynamic glow that shows users when Gemini is listening, thinking, reasoning, and responding. The speaker maintains essential features like grouping with other Home and Nest speakers for multi-room music and the ability to use two units as a stereo pair. It also includes a physical toggle to mute the microphone for guaranteed privacy.
Nest Security: A 2K Vision and Wider View
The new Nest cameras and doorbell are engineered specifically to provide the rich, detailed data that Gemini’s multimodal AI requires. The most significant technical jump is the switch to 2K HDR video on all three new devices, Google’s highest resolution yet. Independent testing ranked these cameras first in their class for image quality, providing the critical leap in clarity needed for advanced semantic scene understanding.
The cameras feature wider and taller fields of view than their predecessors. The new Nest Cams capture a sweeping 152° diagonal view, while the Nest Doorbell offers a 1:1 aspect ratio and a 166° diagonal view, ensuring users can see wide driveways and packages on the ground from head to toe. Furthermore, a new sensor and wider aperture deliver greatly improved low-light performance, allowing the cameras to stay in full-colour mode longer at dawn and dusk before switching to infrared night vision.
Gemini for Home: Contextual AI in Action
The new hardware directly unlocks powerful Gemini for Home capabilities, translating complex video data into simple, actionable intelligence.
The most practical AI features include:
- Searchable Video History (Ask Home): Instead of manually scrolling through hours of footage, users can ask a natural language question—like, “What happened to the vase in the living room?”—and instantly receive the relevant video clips and an event description.
- Home Brief Summaries: Gemini summarizes hours of footage into a quick, digestible summary, allowing users to catch up on their home’s activity at a glance.
- Descriptive Notifications: Alerts are more detailed, providing context rather than generic warnings (e.g., “dog jumps out of playpen” instead of just “motion detected”).
Google Home Premium: AI Services and Video History
To access the advanced AI capabilities and extended video history, Google has replaced Nest Aware with Google Home Premium, a new subscription service.
The service features two tiers:
- Standard Plan: Provides features like Gemini Live (hotword-free conversations) and 30 days of event-based video history.
- Advanced Plan: Adds AI-generated event descriptions, automated Home Brief summaries, and searchable video history.
This subscription is strategically bundled with other services; Google AI Pro members receive the Standard plan, and AI Ultra members receive the full Advanced plan at no extra cost.
Pricing & Availability
The new Google Home and Nest devices are available for pre-order. Using the latest available exchange rate (1 USD ≈ 4.21 MYR), the pricing is as follows:
| Device | USD Price | Malaysian Ringgit (RM) Price | Colourways |
| Google Home Speaker | $99.99 | (RM421) | Snow, Fog, Linen, Sand |
| Nest Cam Indoor (3rd Gen) | $129.99 | (RM547) | Snow, Hazel, Berry |
| Nest Cam Outdoor (2nd Gen) | $179.99 | (RM758) | Snow, Fog |
| Nest Doorbell (3rd Gen) | $179.99 | (RM758) | Snow, Fog, Linen |
The subscription plans are priced as follows: Google Home Premium Standard is $10/month (RM42), and Advanced is $20/month (RM84).
