The first Google Home Hub, later renamed Nest Hub, arrived on store shelves in October 2018. It’s remarkable that we’ve used smart displays for nearly seven years. These devices have become regular parts of our daily lives in numerous ways. While there are many ways to utilize smart displays, from asking for the weather and setting timers to playing music and viewing photos, these powerful devices have numerous features that can be overlooked.
Aside from asking your smart home devices to play music and do your bidding all day, automations are the best way to get things done around your smart home. Automations complete actions around your smart home based on the instructions you give. There are loads of automations and ways to create new ones, even using Gemini. However, it feels magical when your smart home recognizes you and responds accordingly, doing so at the right time.
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It has good sense
Right place, right time
While Google has not offered many choices in smart display hardware, the recent release was in March 2021 with the Nest Hub (2nd gen). The company continued to add new features via software updates, and one of those handy updates brought us presence sensing. This feature uses your phone’s GPS location to determine whether you are at home. You need to allow permissions for this feature to work. If you want to eliminate one more way you’re tracked, skip this feature.
How does this feature play into smart home automation? It allows you to take some of those menial tasks off your plate that you typically have to do every time you leave the house.
One way I use it to make my life less stressful is through an automation that is active from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Since I work from home, I want to ensure that the doors are locked, the lights are off, and the cameras are armed when I leave my house. Presence sensing makes this easy. This automation executes all of those tasks after I leave the predetermined perimeter of my property. I get a notification on my phone that the automation is running, and I know my home is taken care of.
Aside from taking care of things for you when you leave, presence sensing also works when you return. The door I often enter automatically unlocks for me, disables the security system, and turns on a few lights in the house when I enter my property.
Presence sensing works for more than your home. You can set automations to happen when you arrive at work. Instead of running automation at home, an automation can switch your phone to a work profile, connect to your office Wi-Fi, or enable other useful functions based on when you arrive at work. Then run the automation in reverse when you leave the office. Having your life and devices work for you, based on your location, can help reduce stress.
Getting to know you
Face to the name
Along with presence sensing, one of my favorite features for Google smart displays is Familiar Faces on the Nest Hub Max. As the only Google Assistant smart display with a camera, it offers assistance that others cannot. While presence sensing utilizes your phone’s GPS to determine your location, the camera on the Nest Hub Max knows you — literally.
Familiar Faces is another feature that is off by default. To use the feature, enable it in the device’s settings. When you do, you can use the Google Home app to assign names to faces that the device sees. With people labeled, the device notifies you when specific people are spotted. When you’re away from home and want to be notified when the kids wake up and get breakfast, your Nest Hub Max alerts you when it detects them.
In addition to notifying users when people are spotted, the Nest Hub Max also displays contextual information based on who it recognizes. When my smart display sees me, it shows my calendar and reminders on the screen. If it sees my wife, it shows hers. This is a great way to save time and only see the info you want.
Proactive actions
These are two of the features that have been around for a long time. Familiar Faces has been available since the Nest Hub Max was introduced in September 2019, and I feel that it is largely underrecognized and underutilized.
Even more forgotten is the presence sensing feature. Accomplishing tasks in your home, or on your phone, based on location rather than time, is great for many people. My schedule can be hectic, and pinning down a time when I need an automation to run can be tricky. Letting it happen based on where I am is great.
Will Gemini change how we play the game?
It will be interesting to see how Google’s smart home portfolio of products integrates within the broader ecosystem of devices as Gemini begins to replace Google Assistant. We’ve seen glimpses of Gemini creeping into Google Home by helping create automations, and given how much more powerful Gemini is than Google Assistant, I hope to see even more seamless smart home experiences in the future.
- Display
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10″ LCD HD 1280 x 800
- Colors
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Chalk, Charcoal
- Connectivity
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Bluetooth, Wi-Fi
- Dimensions
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4 x 9.8 x 7.2 in.
- Weight
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2.9lbs
- Integrations
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Google Assistant, Nest, Arlo, Hue, SmartThings, Wink
The Google Nest Hub Max is Google’s biggest smart display and an excellent smart home hub. Although it may be on the older side, it is packed with impressive technology to help make your life easier. With the Familiar Faces feature, your smart display will know exactly what you want to see.
