These are not the photos you’re looking for: Nest Hub adding hand wave gesture for browsing

The Soli chip that’s built into the second-generation Nest Hub lets you use Jedi Mind Tricks to control the experience using ‘Motion Sense’. Well, not literally, but holding your hand up to play or pause music and waving to dismiss timers sure feels like using the Force to bend reality to your will, doesn’t it?

Well, apparently, that’s just not enough for Google as it’s adding yet another – the ability to swipe through Google Photos just by waving your hand from left to right or vice versa in front o the display. Discovered by 9to5Google, this “browse photos” trick was recently encountered in the Home app a bit early, and showed an animated tutorial of the process. You’ll notice in the photos below that the hand wave gesture already existed for the aforementioned two use cases, but now the small and almost easy-to-miss inclusion of photo navigation on your Hub’s screensaver has been added.

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According to 9to5Google, the new feature isn’t yet working on 2nd-gen Nest Hubs with Cast firmware v1.56, but enrolling your device into the Preview program could help ensure you get it as soon as it’s ready for early consumer testing. Of course, this can be disabled using the quick toggle found in the app’s settings, but I can’t see many situations where you would accidentally trigger it and therefore be averse to it.

I also find it interesting how the very same feature that was rejected by Pixel phone owners to control their music ended up being a pretty awesome and futuristic way to interact with our smart homes. Sometimes, new technology and innovations have to go through that ‘awkward haircut’ stage before it finds its place in society. Let me know below if this is something you’re already using for timers and such or if you’ve disabled it entirely.