Stephen Schenck / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google is rolling out several Home updates for the voice assistant and camera AI.
- The voice assistant has been improved to end conversations more quickly, better filter background speech, and more.
- Familiar face and sound detection are also getting improvements.
Google regularly releases Home updates every couple of weeks. The latest update has landed, offering a long list of improvements for Gemini’s conversational voice assistant and Home camera AI.
Gemini voice assistant improvements
Google has announced that the Gemini for Home voice assistant is getting conversational and latency upgrades. One of those improvements is fewer accidental activations. As the tech giant explains, Gemini is now better at filtering out accidental hotword triggers. So you won’t have to worry as much about unintentionally starting a conversation with the chatbot.
The next improvement is designed to help you end conversations with Gemini more quickly. Now, when you say “Stop” or “No thanks” after a follow-up question, Gemini will know to end Continued Conversation. Speaking of Continued Conversation, Gemini now also does a better job at ignoring background speech. Google says it has also improved the speed and accuracy of managing alarms, timers, and lists.
Along with conversational and latency upgrades, Google is also rolling out updates for media and entertainment. The first of these updates makes media playback on Spotify and YouTube faster, so you’re not waiting as long after requests like “play music.” Following that, voice reliability and verbal confirmations when playing or shuffling music has been improved. You’ll also start getting more accurate answers when asking questions about media.
The final part of this update expands voice assistant to the whole family, including kids. Google says that the capability is available across all supported countries and languages.
Camera AI improvements
The second half of this announcement focuses on camera AI improvements. Specifically, it focuses on Familiar Face and sound detection. Starting with Familiar Face, the tech giant states that it will automatically update your library “to save the most recent and accurate examples.” For Advanced plan users, the AI will also start using clothing and other signals to detect who’s in view when the face is not visible.
Moving on to sound detection, today’s update will enable the AI to identify certain sounds. So, it will now be able to tell the difference between a dog bark and footsteps and more. Google says these details will be added directly to video descriptions for person, car, or motion events that contain sound. It appears that this improvement is also reserved for Advanced plan users of Google Home Premium.
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