Google's new speaker and your smart home questions

0:02Hello and welcome to the VergeCast, the flagship podcast of ultra-wideband door locks. I'm your friend David Pierce and today on the show we are answering your questions about the smart home. We get a lot of questions about the smart home. I would say that is the single most popular thing on the VergeCast hotline, 866-VERGE11 or send us an email at vergecasttotheverge.com. So every once in a while Jen Tuohy comes on the show and just answers as many of your questions as we can. We also have the new Google Home speaker in-house. We've been testing this new smart home device from Google, and we both have some thoughts about what this thing actually is.

0:36We're going to get to all of that in just a second. But first, here's everything else happening on The Verge today. This is 90 Seconds on The Verge for Wednesday, June 24th, 2026. OpenAI just revealed its first AI chip, which is for some reason called Jalapeno. I don't know. It's specifically an inference chip, which means it's not for training huge models, but for interacting with them. OpenAI has been working with Broadcom on these chips, and if they're good, they're actually a huge deal. NVIDIA became the world's most valuable company in large part by having the best AI chips around, and everyone else would love to control their own destiny a little more and stop needing NVIDIA so badly.

1:11Plus, OpenAI desperately needs to figure out a way to make AI usage cheaper and more energy efficient, all of which it says Jalapeno will do. We'll see about all that when it launches later this year. Meanwhile, big day for price reveals. We finally know what Grand Theft Auto 6 will cost when it finally, actually, apparently, for real, seriously launches this November. It's going to be$80 for the standard version, which is unfortunately increasingly the price of high-end games, or$100 for the Ultimate version. Pre-orders start tonight, and you get some cool added gear, and you might even get the game early if you pre-order.

1:40But you know what you apparently can't get at all? Is a disc with the game on it. Imagine, even the quote-unquote physical version of GTA 6 is just a box with a download code in it. Does that even count as a physical version? That's up to you. I say no, it absolutely does not. Meanwhile, the Slate truck, the extremely minimalist pickup truck with no paint or speakers or power windows, finally has a price tag. It's gonna start at$24 ,950. That makes it the cheapest pickup and the cheapest EV you'll find pretty much anywhere on the market right now. People have been really interested in this thing, and I suspect the price tag is only gonna be good news.

2:12And finally, it's Amazon Prime Day, and we're tracking all the best deals everywhere, but here's my main recommendation. A lot of Apple gear is on sale right now, and you should jump on those deals. Apple CEO Tim Cook said recently that prices are about to go up, so I would buy while the buying's good. You can read more about all of this at TheVerge.com. That is 90 Seconds on The Verge for Wednesday, June 24th. When I got a new car, I thought my insurance premium would increase and empty my bank account. Like if Fetween won the lottery. I've invested most of my winnings in chicken tenders because they're bomb.

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3:42Let's get to some of your smart home questions. Joining me now, The Verge is Jen Toohey. Hi, Jen. Hi, David. You are somewhere on a college campus being collegiate and having lots of school spirit. I am. Oh, the school spirit. Yes, this is the South. Go Tigers! It's not, it's June, so it's not football season, but it is always football season. Always football season in the South. That is very much the case. Well, I appreciate you jumping on and doing this with us. We have a couple of smart homie questions to get to. But first, I want to talk about something that we have been asked about a lot over the last nine months because it has taken this thing nine months to ship to the world, which is the Google Home speaker.

4:23You have one waiting for you at home. I have one sitting right here next to me. It's so red. It's very red. I will say my immediate response was like when you fill out a form to get products like this from Google and they make you sort of list in order what colors you want. And I was like, how do I say I only want the red one? And under no circumstances should you send me anything else. I find this always completely fascinating, in part because like my sort of early returns on 24 hours of using it are that it's a pretty good speaker. It plays music. It sounds like a thousand times better than the Echo Mini.

4:53I have a Logitech Wonderboom, the little Bluetooth speaker that I use for everything all the time. And I think I like this better than that. Like as a little thing for playing music, it's pretty impressive. But I find myself wondering the same thing you and I have been asked many times, which is why on earth should I trust Google to be my smart home platform of the future? This is the first Google Home speaker in six years. Google has seemed at various times to care deeply about doing the smart home and smart speakers and then at times to completely forget that it does any of these things. So give me a sense.

5:28This thing is$99. It's red. It's cool. I like it. it seems almost sort of irresponsible to tell people to buy it because of Google's commitment to this thing. How should I feel about this? So this is kind of the story for all the major platforms, honestly. And we've had Anish Katakaran on the Vergecast. We talked with him and he's the head of Google Home and he gave an impassioned defense of Google and the smart home. And I just spent a few days at a conference around Matter where all of the engineers and people that make the smart home for these big platforms were there. And they are all fully in on the smart home and matter.

6:07But the question is, are there bosses? Like, how much further is this going to go? And, you know, I do think this time around, and I'm going to get a lot of hate for this, I feel like Google really is putting in the effort here. I think the fact they spent nine months to ship this speaker after announcing it, and I asked this question, why nine months? Because we were making sure it really worked well with Gemini for Home. They've spent an awful lot of time re-architecting the foundation of Google Home. And this is one of the reasons why I think so many people have struggled with Google Home in the past.

6:53is it was basically the original smart speakers were like Chromecast software. It wasn't designed to be a smart home device. Apple's HomePod, Amazon's Echo's, you know, those were designed in many ways for the smart home. Google's really weren't. And I think this speaker is the beginning of the hardware specifically designed for the smart home. So I'm excited to see where Google goes next. And I also, I don't dislike the restraint. I don't, I'm not a huge fan of how many echoes there are out there. I agree with that. And sort of the need, feel like, do I need to upgrade to get a better experience?

7:34You know, but Google Home's current devices are very long in the tooth. And in fact, have now officially been discontinued. So at least the Nest Mini has no longer available. They're definitely shifting away from the Nest name. I know. So, you know, I think this is their last chance. Get it right now, Google. But from what I've seen and talking to people in the industry and Google, people at Google, like there is a lot of momentum for them behind this because it's a place for Gemini. And the whole company is Gemini now. That's fair. You can't argue this is an AI device as much as it is a smart home device.

8:14Exactly. And in that sense, I have a lot of faith in Google's ability to care deeply about this thing for a very long time. Yeah. To that end, actually. Well, one thing on the hardware before. I want to talk about Gemini for home for just a minute because I don't fully understand what it is. And I'm hoping you can explain it to me. But on the hardware front, I have realized in testing this thing that everybody has experimented with lots of different kinds of hardware, right? There was a time where people were doing sort of big, high-end, like professional-level smart speakers. We've seen the big, tall ones.

8:44We've seen lots of different shapes and sizes of all of these things. It does feel like this, and I'm holding up the Echo Mini and the Google Home Speaker, is the correct answer. Like, I think what we've discovered is most people don't want these to be like gigantic home theater systems. They just want them to be relatively small, sound relatively good, and like sit on a table in your living room somewhere. Like, if you're going to pick an answer, this feels like the right answer to me. The right size. Do you agree with that? That's the Echo Dot, just to clarify. You're right. Sorry, it's the Echo Dot.

9:14The Nest Mini was the little Nest. Yeah. Yeah, the Echo, I do. I think if you're a high-end, if you want high-end audio, you're not buying smart home speakers. You know, you're going with the Sonos or the Denon or something even more expensive. But the way that these smart speakers work, and this is one of the things that the new Google Home speaker does, is, you know, you can pair them with your Google Home streamer or your Fire TV. So there is an element of added sound benefit that you're getting from these speakers. But generally, yeah, you're just using them primarily for that voice interface, like setting the timers, asking for the weather or whatever Gemini or Alexa Plus can do for you.

9:57And I think one of the arguments that Google said why they created this shape was because people didn't like how big the Nest Audio was. It was hard to fit in spaces. And I actually had that issue, too, with the Nest Audio. So I can see that argument. And I also think the smaller ones, the really small ones, like the Echo Dot before this and the Nest Minis were too small, too tinny. People have gotten used to decent sound now. We've found that spot and I don't think we're going to move from it for a while. Yeah, I tend to agree. And I think in terms of like, can we get the sound to good enough?

10:32The home speaker, I think, easily clears that bar, which I find actually pretty exciting. Like as a sort of simple, like right now I have a Sonos speaker in our playroom that we just like use to play toddler music all day. I would absolutely swap this thing into that spot and be very happy with the sound quality, which I think is kind of all it needs to be. Yeah. And I've heard it's not as good technically a speaker as the audio, the Nest audio. But I think you're right. The difference is probably legible for the type of device this is and what you're likely to use it for. Yeah, totally. Real quick on Gemini for home.

11:07I think Google has made a lot of noise about this big AI upgrade for smart home stuff. The replacing Google Assistant with Gemini, everything is LLM powered. We've also watched Amazon do this same thing, I would say, to not always great effect. Like, yes, it's great that you can talk more naturally to these things. Yes, it's good that you can have sort of longer, more complicated conversations. On the other hand, it actually seems in many cases running these things through this more complicated AI technology makes it harder to just say turn on the lights and assume that the lights will turn on.

11:42You and I both have a lot of Gemini for Home testing to do. But I'm curious what you've seen sort of in this space in general with Alexa Plus and Gemini for Home and all of this stuff. Like, is the AI smart home control actually getting to the point where it can work? No, not yet. That's what I was afraid of. So this has been my biggest sort of frustration with the new LLM-powered smart home assistants or smart assistants. because I feel like, to our point earlier, that this is Alexa Plus and Gemini is what the broader companies want. And they're focused on the larger use cases, the more personalized assistant use cases, you know, being the new Siri, being part of your whole life, not just your home.

12:30And in my experience, that feels that the home side has been slightly, it's less priority for the home side, more priority for ordering an Uber or buying, getting me a handyman or telling me, you know, giving me a whole exposition on the state of the World Cup, you know, like giving that experience, which is, there's valuable experiences in there. But the core basic, I'm just going to be able to use my smart home better is still wonky. I can see that it's getting a little better. I mean, some of the best experiences I've had of being able to set up routines with voice, which you can do with Alexa Plus, and being able to do multiple commands to control your devices, which you can do with both home assistants.

13:15But yeah, right now I feel like the focus for most of these companies is making the Gemini or the Alexa Plus better at the larger picture. They're not smart home specialists anymore, which is what Google Assistant and the original Alexa really were. I don't think that means they never will be. I just feel like that part has been a slower boil. Some things I'm excited about with Google Home is that they have added a lot more local control to the devices. It's still just specific device types, so lights and plugs. That shift towards local, which is also powered by the Matter support both platforms offer, that's going to present a much better smart home experience for your basic use cases.

13:57The big picture for both of these platforms is also the AI with the camera and the home security. And this is also something I think we'll see coming more to Apple when they launch, if they launch their new Siri in the home, is being able to query your speaker and sort of say, when did you see the UPS guy? Those types of experiences, I think, are going to be the primary focus for the smart home, more so than just making sure your lights turn on fast. Yeah, it's an interesting piece of it because I think you're right that we are getting more complicated, more interesting possibilities out of the LLM-powered stuff while running the risk of losing all of the stuff that you actually need to do all day.

14:41Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's going to be interesting. And I think the idea of these things being primarily AI speakers with a sort of side of smart home is probably right. And I don't know if that's what I would like these things to be, but it does feel like if you sort of look at it as every company ships its org chart, like there's more AI in here than there is smart home. Very much so. For better and for worse. Yeah. Yeah. And it's nice that Google are bringing along their smart home. I mean, I felt like, you know, given their history, we could have totally expected to see them just be like, okay, we're going to just cut that off at the legs and start fresh.

15:19But they've put a lot of effort into bringing old devices and or, you know, bringing the whole ecosystem of how you used Google Assistant before into Gemini for Home. It's been a bumpy ride, though. I mean, I think it means that people that are using for Gemini for Home today, who have previously used Google Assistant are still finding things that they can't do. But talking to the Google Home folks, they are constantly trying to add these old features back into the new system. And hopefully they will work better once they're here. Here's hoping. And I just want you to know, and I want everyone to know who's at home listening and watching that I haven't rolled my eyes any of the times Jen has said matter so far.

16:00I just want everyone to know that.

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19:17Well, we have lots more Google Home Speaker stuff to do. You have some testing to do. I have some testing to do. We may come back to this thing at some point in the near future because it's red and it's cool looking and I like it. But for now, let's get to some of our other questions. All right, Jen, I have two questions for you. The first one is from Patrick. And it is a question that has made me feel a surprising amount of feelings. So Patrick says, I own an Ecobee smart thermostat and I've owned it for a while now. At the time, I think it was one of the few HomeKit enabled brands, or at least it was highly recommended for some of the Apple ecosystem.

19:49I think it's one of those gadgets that are reliable so we don't get new ones every year, but also dot dot dot. This thing hasn't changed at all since I bought it years ago. No new features or innovation, not even AI. Nobody has tried selling me an AI enabled smart thermostat yet. Not complaining, just surprise. Even my dishwasher's default cycle is AI wash. Do you see why this made me feel feelings? This is I am so with Patrick on this emotional roller coaster. Yeah. But I guess there are sort of two parts of this that I'm curious for your thoughts about. One is, are we due for the AI-ification of every single product that, A, these companies want to sell you, and B, they want to update that are already in your house?

20:31Well, yes. Again, at this conference I was just at, Unify, which is the conference from Connectivity Standards Alliance, the people behind MATA, the originator of the term Internet of Things was talking, and he was railing against smart appliances. He's like, we do not need smart appliances. We do not need a smart fridge. We do not need a smart dishwasher. He was saying we need to put AI into creating much more valuable experiences because he doesn't see any value in the current experiences. But when it comes to thermostats, I think the specific argument here is actually these were already using a form of AI.

21:16True. All the way back to the Nest. It is like fundamentally AI technology. Exactly. It was one of the earliest machine learning devices we put in our homes. And the ECOB also not quite as learning as the Nest, but it used machine learning to kind of optimize your comfort and energy savings was kind of their line. because it was observing your behavior, detecting patterns. You know, it was using something that your bog standard thermostat did not. And I think that's probably why you feel like you haven't seen people touting AI as a feature here because the core use case of the type of intelligence we're talking about for bringing into the home is to sort of manage it automatically for you without you having to input.

22:01And that's really what the sort of selling point of these thermostats has been for the decade that they've been around. They were ahead of the game, to be fair. They have had a lot of under-the-hood kind of upgrades and improvements, but the newer models have added a lot more whiz-bang features. And that's what I think we're starting to see in the smart home is bringing in more use cases for your devices and also connecting into the rest of your home. And the AI-powered element, I think, we'll start to see more of. Like we mentioned with the speakers, there's this sort of push from the platforms to, you know, integrate their Demi and their Alexa Plus into these devices more so that you can do more with them in your home.

22:45Or ultimately, have your home do more for you without you having to do any input. Because that was one of the arguments against these devices, the Nest and the Ecobee early on, is they would just go off and do their own thing. And you're like, no, I don't want to be that cold. For better and for worse. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's an interesting space to watch. I mean, there's a lot of new smart thermostats that have come out recently that have one interesting area is Apple's new adaptive temperature feature, which basically takes what both the Nest and the Ecobee made their name on, that automatically adapting to your habits and use, and makes it available to any thermostat that works with Apple Home.

23:27So you have to adopt their API, their adaptive temperature system, but they can do everything like switch modes, detect occupancy, determine when you're coming and going, which is what these other thermostats all did. So we're sort of seeing a democratization, I suppose, of these smart features because both the Nest and the Ecobee are expensive. You can now buy a smart thermostat for, you know,$100,$150. And I think we'll start to see only a couple work with Apple right now, the adaptive features. But I think we'll start to see more of those, especially with because it's all through Matter. So we're starting to see, again, to get less expensive to get these smarter features.

24:13And I like his point that we don't upgrade our thermostats very often. So this is the other thing I was going to ask you about, which is, I think, what is a reasonable set of expectations to have for something like a smart thermostat that I plug into my wall? And ideally, I would like to have it there until I die, right? Like, I don't know. No one has ever been excited about upgrading their thermostat. It's a thing you do when you have to do it. And so I think I get excited. You do. This is why this is why you're here, Jen. This is why we love you. But I think on the one hand, one of the cool things about having these things be more technologically advanced is that they can get new features.