Google Home’s new Gemini Extension frees you to control your smart home with natural language

Kaitlyn Cimino / Android Authority

Inch by inch, Google Gemini is slowly spreading its AI reach across more and more of the company’s apps and services. And as it does so, Gemini becomes more useful and more functional, to the point that it should one day be ready to replace Assistant. Maybe the most substantial way we see Gemini’s influence grow is with the release of new Extensions, and this week we’re getting our first taste of a bunch of powerful new ones.

Probably the biggest one here is the Gemini Extension for Google Home. For as much as you can do with Home and all your connected devices, controlling it with Assistant can sometimes feel a little hit-or-miss; how many times has Assistant just completely whiffed on you when giving it what felt like a straightforward command? Thanks to Gemini, those sort of frustrations may soon be a thing of the past, as it offers the ability to control your smart home using natural language.

Rather than issuing a specific command targeted at one of your devices, or calling up a routine you’ve gone to the trouble of configuring, with Gemini’s Google Home Extension you can just make observations like “the sun is too bright in the living room,” and Gemini will be clever enough to realize that means it needs to close your smart blinds. Similarly, “help me clean up” can prompt Home to activate your robot vacuum.

There are some notable limitations, especially when it comes to security hardware, but even at this early stage Gemini’s Home support looks reasonably robust. If you’re interested in giving it a try, you’ll need to register for the Public Preview program.

In addition to Home, we’re hearing about Gemini Extension support arriving for a few other apps. Earlier this month we checked out the progress on Extensions for Google Messages and Whatsapp, and now 9to5Google has spotted Google updating its support docs to reflect the release of both of those, along with one for the Phone app.

WhatsApp is notable as a third-party Gemini Extension — these don’t have to just be Google apps. Just like you’d expect, you can use it to send messages and initiate calls. If you’d rather stick to Google’s solutions, the Phone Extension is also happy to dial numbers for you, and with Gemini this can all work contextually — you can be asking it about a business, and then go straight to “OK, let’s call them.” For the moment, at least, this is all outgoing, and you can’t use Gemini to answer calls. The Messages Extension has some important limitations of its own, like an inability to use Gemini to break your texts down into summaries.

All three of these are also in limited release for the moment, with Google gradually making them available to more users. Here, though, you won’t have to register for anything to get access — just sit tight.

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