Google Home app redesigns Home view to match Android home controls, improved privacy settings

If you use any of Google’s family of smart home devices, you likely have the Google Home app installed on your mobile device. After all, it is required to set up all those Nest Mini speakers you’ve accumulated throughout the years. However, I can’t say that this is an app I regularly use as I’d much rather use the home controls that launched with Android 11, which are so conveniently located in my quick settings tiles and, in my opinion, offer a clearer view of power toggles.

It appears that Google may feel the same way, as they have announced that they will be rolling out similar style controls to the home view of the Google Home app over the next few weeks. The announcement states that these new controls should make it easier to control your connected devices with fewer taps while also bridging the look and feel of home controls on Android and Google Nest smart displays. Google states:

On both Android and iOS, the new controls help you quickly find and understand the status of the devices in your home so you can dim your compatible lights or change the music volume in a snap. You can also tap to turn a device on or off, slide left or right to make adjustments, and long press for more controls.

Google Nest Community

But that’s not all coming to the app: This week, new centralized “Settings” will be rolling out to allow you to manage several things at once, such as privacy controls, home activity, and Assistant data. Later this month, the home feed will also undergo changes with a sorted and less cluttered view of the most recent activity in your smart home and grouping events that happened around the same time.

I must say that the changes announced sound very promising and may finally entice me to look more into what the Google Home app has to offer, instead of just using it as a hub for my Android home controls. From the announcement, it sounds like these will be staged rollouts that won’t happen all at once, but it is unclear if a new version of the Google Home app is forthcoming from the Play Store. We’ll continue to report on this once the changes roll out more widely.