What you need to know
- Google is rebranding all of its developer tools to Google Home, bringing its smart home initiatives under one roof.
- The new Google Home tools will make it easier for developers to integrate their products with Matter, the new unified smart home platform for the industry.
- Google Home users should expect to see suggested routines appear in their Google Home apps, helping them better integrate their smart home products together.
Google's renewed look at the smart home took shape at its smart home developer's summit, revealing a unified Google not often seen. While we've seen many names for the tech giant's tools and smart home initiatives over the years, the company is bringing everything together, including its development toolkits, under the Google Home name.
If you're picking up the best smart home products in the future, all of these new changes should ensure your smart home devices work better than ever. Much of this revolves around the Matter initiative, which is aiming to debut its unified smart home standard where devices from all vendors — be it Google, Amazon, Eufy, Arlo, etc. — will work together in ways they simply don't right now.
As part of the new Google Home initiative, the tech giant is building Matter support into Nest and Android products once the new standards are finalized next year. Once completed, Google aims to make setting up a Matter-enabled smart home device as simple as pairing Bluetooth headphones with your phone.
Google's new Google Home Developer Center should make it easier for developers to integrate Matter into their products, as well as create suggested routines for users to better integrate those products with existing smart home setups. During the new setup process, the Google Home app will suggest better ways of integrating the new product into your smart home with routines, making it much easier to get the most out of a new device.
We're expecting Matter to debut sometime in 2022, but the new Google Home development tools are beginning to roll out for developers right now, ensuring that many smart home gadgets are ready for Matter when it eventually launches.
