So you’ve decided to take your first steps towards building a smart home. The biggest hurdle ahead of you is deciding which platform you should use, and this likely depends on a few factors, like which ecosystems you’re already familiar with and comfortable using.
There are some good pointers out there about what you should use, but today we’re going to focus on a platform that might be best avoided: Google Home.
Google Home seems to be getting worse
Google Home is the search giant’s own smart home platform, not to be confused with the smart speaker that Google since rebranded as Google Nest. It’s a proprietary, Google-flavored smart home ecosystem that competes directly with Amazon Alexa, Apple Home (also known as HomeKit), and Samsung SmartThings.
I’m going to lay my cards on the table right now: I use Home Assistant and Apple Home. I have a Google Nest mini smart speaker, which I’ve had for longer than I’ve been using Apple Home. My interest in Google’s smart home platform waned long before I set up my own system. I’m not a hater, I’m just not much of a fan.
But it’s getting increasingly harder to ignore the complaints of Google Home users as time goes on. The most common complaint seems to be an overall decline in dependability, basic stuff like no longer being able to rely on the platform to action simple commands like turning on lights. Outlets like Android Authority picked up on this in 2025, prompting Chief Product Officer for Google Home and Nest, Anish Kattukaran, to acknowledge the growing discontent.
Many of the complaints come from Reddit, which is admittedly a place that many of us turn to in order to seek out help with problems or vent our frustrations. But even considering that the loudest voices in the room are those with grievances to air, the r/GoogleHome subreddit makes for particularly painful reading.
Many have attributed this loss in functionality to the killing off of Google Assistant. The sentiment that its replacement is inferior is shared by some Android writers at How-To Geek, and wavering enthusiasm might be to blame for Google backtracking on its original rollout plans.
Gemini, whether you like it or not
Google introduced a new Home app in late 2025, redesigned around its Gemini chatbot. Even though Gemini seems to be eating ChatGPT’s lunch in the LLM wars, the reception among those who were previously happy with Google Assistant has been frosty.
Many of the complaints are prompted by the sort of quirky AI behaviors that we’ve come to expect from such models. For example, Gemini confidently told one user it can’t set alarms, despite this having been a core feature for years (and other commenters remarked that they could do this just fine).
There are other glitches like Gemini reporting that “6.20 am is in the past” when setting an alarm, and confidently claiming not to be able to play white noise on a smart speaker until the user encouraged the assistant to do so.
If you haven’t yet got Gemini and you’re curious, Google makes it somewhat difficult to switch back. You have to essentially create a new home in order to do this, whereas moving from Assistant to Gemini is a simple case of opting in.
Google is aware of these issues, even chiming in on some of these threads to ask for deeper feedback reports. But it hasn’t yet made significant changes to stem the flow of complaints from those who were quite happy with the way things used to work.
Matter support is the worst of the bunch
Matter is a smart home standard that is designed to foster interoperability between smart home platforms. The idea is that device manufacturers can design their products to be compatible with the Matter standard, and then companies like Google can implement that standard so that these devices can be used within these ecosystems.
While the dream of platform-agnostic smart home devices is an admirable one, the Matter vision has yet to fully materialize. Even if devices are compatible with your platform of choice, there’s no guarantee that all features will be implemented. For example, you might be able to turn a light bulb on or off, but to change its color, you’ll be limited to the manufacturer’s own app.
The current version of Matter is 1.5, which added support for cameras and closures like curtains (among other things). With each release of the standard, more devices become available, and older ones gain new abilities. This only works if the companies that have committed to Matter implement the latest version of the standard.
A quick glance at the Google Developer Center reveals that Google Home appears to still be on version 1.0 of the Matter standard, with limited support for some devices added in the 1.2 update. The fact that you can buy devices with the Matter logo on the box that won’t work with your supposedly Matter-compatible Google Home feels antithetical to the end goal.
Google Home is highly cloud-dependent
Even though Matter allows for Google’s hubs to work locally, the Google Home platform is still highly dependent on the cloud to function. The transition has been a slow one, and many devices out there that are designed for use with Google Home do not support Matter.
Google only made this switch in early 2025, whereas rival platform Apple Home (for all its flaws) was designed with local support from the outset. Better yet, Home Assistant is a truly open smart home platform that is built around the concept of local control and broad device support.
You only need to look at what happened to Amazon smart homes last year to see why using a platform that’s highly dependent on the cloud is a bad idea.
So what should you use instead? Home Assistant is arguably the best alternative in terms of compatibility, local control, and platform agnosticism. Learn more about why you should give it a shot in 2026.
