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Ask HN: What Happened to Google Home/Nest?

by jfoster on 2/23/25, 3:24 AM with 1 comments

I have noticed that Google Home's intelligence has been deteriorating over the years. For example, today I asked it "is Sweden part of the EU?" and it reproducibly responds "sorry, I didn't understand". I can see on my phone screen that it understood the words correctly.

So I wondered, have my expectations increased because of LLMs? But I looked up the original announcement from 8 years ago and it seems like it was meant to intelligently handle simple questions.

https://youtu.be/uM5AxrepDKY?t=380

Is Google dumbing it down to make Gemini seem smarter or neglecting it for some reason? Considering how hard Google are pushing Gemini across all of their other products, it seems incredible to me that Home/Nest has gone backward.

by ChrisArchitect on 2/23/25, 3:27 AM
Nah. Answers that question fine. Not saying there isn't a lacking of 'gemini-esque' improvement in the Home/Assistants but it's kind of where it has been for years, which is somewhat reasonable for everyday queries. More recently I've been impressed with its ability to control television/chromecast down to the particular show on a particular app.