TL;DR
- Gemini for Home is currently limited to US Early Access users using first-party Google Home and Nest smart displays and speakers.
- Interestingly, a Lenovo Smart Display 10 was spotted displaying an “Update in progress” card for Gemini.
- This suggests Google’s Gemini for Home rollout may expand to older, third-party smart home hardware.
Gemini is already available for Google Home, but the rollout has been relatively limited so far. Only users in the US who are enrolled in the Early Access program have access to the Gemini smarts; the program will expand to global markets next year. Google has also shared the list of devices that are eligible for the upgrade to Gemini, but all the devices are first-party smart home devices. It seems one more smart home device is about to join this list, but it’s also bringing good news for the wider third-party Google Home ecosystem.
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Reddit user infosage shared a screen from their Lenovo Smart Display 10 that shows a Google Assistant card which says “Update in progress. Check back soon to get started with Gemini for Home.”
Google’s official list of smart home devices that will support the update to Gemini is as follows:
- Speakers
- Google Home (2016)
- Google Home Mini (2017)
- Google Home Max (2017)
- Nest Mini (2019)
- Nest Audio (2020)
- Displays
- Google Home Hub/Nest Hub (2018)
- Nest Hub Max (2019)
- 2nd gen Nest Hub (2021)
The list includes practically every existing Google Home/Google Nest smart speaker and display, even those that are almost a decade old. However, this list doesn’t mention any third-party hardware, such as the Google Assistant-equipped Lenovo Smart Display. Lenovo hasn’t yet shared any update plans for its smart display lineup either. So the appearance of this update screen is great news for users who are still using Lenovo’s smart displays as part of their smart home setup.
What makes the news even sweeter is that the Lenovo Smart Display 10 is from 2018, so an almost seven-year-old smart home device getting such a substantial infrastructure update is big news. It also signals that other older Assistant-equipped hardware could also have the opportunity to upgrade to Gemini for Home. However, we will have to wait for confirmation from Google and the respective manufacturers.
We’ve reached out to Google to learn more about supported third-party smart home devices for Gemini for Home. We’ll keep you updated as soon as we have more information.
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