The cost of the smart home is going up

Smart home sales have been difficult, with major players struggling to profit despite large device deployments. Google is shifting toward monetization through AI-driven subscriptions in the smart home. At Google I/O, Google expanded Gemini for Home APIs so companies can integrate Gemini-powered features into their own apps. The capabilities include AI-generated camera descriptions, natural-language querying of home activity, and daily summaries of events. Google is also expanding Home Brief access to third parties and adding natural-language routine creation, such as making a home appear occupied when away. Service providers and hardware manufacturers can use these features to build proactive services, and companies like ADT and AT&T already use the APIs in security systems.

"Google is seeing dollar signs in the prospect of selling AI-driven subscriptions in the smart home. And it's not alone. At Google I/O this week, Google announced it's expanding its Gemini for Home APIs to allow companies to integrate more of its Gemini-powered smart home features into their own apps."

"Ravi Akella, director of product management for the Home Platform, said this will enable service providers and hardware manufacturers to build monetizable, proactive services that care for users and their homes. These features include those currently offered on its Google Home platform and Nest cameras, such as AI-generated text descriptions from cameras that tell you a child is riding a bike on the lawn rather than just person detected, and Ask Home, which lets you query your home with natural language."

"Google is also expanding access to its Home Brief feature, which summarizes what happened around your home at the end of each day, to third parties, and adding the ability to use natural language to create routines, such as make my home look occupied when I'm not here. Companies like ADT and AT&T are already using Google's Home APIs in their home security systems, and this expansion will allow third parties to put the Google Home Premium subscription and its related features into their own app and subscription services."

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