Since October 2025, Gemini Live has been available on several Google smart speakers and displays, including the Nest Mini, Nest Hub, Nest Hub Max, and Nest Audio. Google left the original Google Home Mini and Nest Hub out in the cold, likely due to their aging hardware. But with the latest round of Google Home improvements, the company is bringing Gemini Live to some of its oldest smart home devices.

With the July 23, 2026, update for Gemini for Home, Google is expanding Gemini Live‘s access to its first-gen smart speakers and displays: the Nest Hub and Home Mini. However, availability is paywalled behind the Google Home Premium subscription.

If you own any of the above devices and pay for the Home Premium subscription, you can start talking to Gemini Live by saying, “Hey Google, let’s chat.”

More importantly, the update addresses a major frustrating issue with using Gemini Live on smart home devices: the lack of contextual memory. On PC and phone, Gemini can store relevant information from previous conversations for better future responses.

So far, that has not been the case with Gemini Live on smart devices. That’s changing now, with Google adding a 15-minute conversational window across Gemini for Home. So the AI-powered assistant will retain the context of your conversation for 15 minutes, allowing you to ask follow-up questions or revisit something you said earlier without starting over.

For example, if you ask Gemini to raise the temperature in your bedroom by 2 degrees, you can ask it to raise it by another degree a few minutes later.

Google Home app picks up several useful improvements

Besides Gemini for Home, Google is rolling out several improvements to the Google Home app. Now, when you save an automation without any starters, the app will clearly show an alert. Controls and labels for smart blinds and other window coverings have also been improved, making it easier to set them to a precise position.

For smart locks, the Google Home app will remind you that passcodes must be manually changed or removed when you remove a member or leave a home.

The update also contains the following reliability and performance improvements:

  • Enhanced iOS Video Experience: We’ve lowered playback error rates and improved stream availability closer to real-time on iOS Google Home App.
  • Seamless video playback resuming: We’ve fixed an issue where video feeds that had been in progress failed to resume properly after unlocking your phone.
  • Improved app link navigation: We’ve fixed deep link navigation so opening device setup or settings links brings you directly to the correct screen.
  • Fixed missing battery alerts: We’ve corrected an issue where full camera batteries were incorrectly reported as having zero hours remaining.

Nest Cameras are getting an update too, which promises to improve connection reliability, a smoother and faster setup process, and more accurate activity zones.

Lastly, Walmart’s onn-branded Outdoor Camera and Floodlight Camera Hardwired are now a part of the Gemini built-in program.