Google Home Users Are Trying to Hack Their Way to a Better Voice Assistant

As Tom Petty once said, “Waiting is the hardest part,” and that’s true in life, as well as, apparently, in your smart home. If a recent Reddit thread is anything to go by, Google Home users are getting impatient waiting for Google’s new Gemini-powered smart home upgrade, Gemini for Home, which is currently only available in Early Access.

Instead of waiting in line to be invited to Gemini for Home — a long-awaited upgrade that promises major upgrades to the Google Assistant experience — Google Home users are trying to work their way (loosely speaking) into getting the supposedly upgraded voice assistant on their home devices. Those who are eager enough to try it and who are not so technologically inclined will be happy to know that the process basically involves just entering a URL and hoping for the best.

According to Redditor u/Siciliano777, typing “googlehome://assistant/voice/setup” into Chrome’s address bar actually brings up the options to enable Gemini for Home on your personal Google devices. From there, some people were allegedly able to sign up for the early access program and create Gemini. Before you get your hopes up, a quick check of the thread shows some mixed results. While some people say the trick worked, others reported that they only got the updated Gemini voices, but not the actual voice assistant. I think this is the hack method.

More than anything else, the fact that so many people are trying to force Gemini to use their devices says a lot. On the one hand, it means that people are clearly interested in upgrading Gemini for their smart home, which can be considered a big win for Google. On the other hand, given the context of people’s general dissatisfaction with Google Home lately, it feels like Home users are desperate to ditch the old Google Assistant for something that actually works.

As I’ve covered previously, Google is promising a lot with its Gemini for Home update, and it’s not just about next-gen capabilities like the ability to search your Nest camera history using natural language prompts. It’s also about delivering on the promise of what Google Assistant was intended to be in the first place (for example, being able to do groundbreaking things like turn off all but one light in a room).

However, whether this is the case remains to be seen. For the record, I haven’t been able to test the Gemini for Home hack myself, nor have I had the opportunity to test the Gemini for Home upgrade for any extended period. I an act Get a brief demo of Gemini for Home on Google’s new smart speaker, but it’s hard to say based on that included demo how Gemini for Home will work IRL. I guess I’ll have to wait like the rest of the avid Google Home users; Either that or we hope the Reddit hack actually saves the day.