Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
A cat jumped Up on my couch Wait a minute. I don’t have a cat.
Alerts about leaping felines are something my Google Home app sent me when I was at a party. Turns out it was my dog. This notification came a day after I turned it on Google’s Gemini for Home power In the Google Home app. It brings the power of large language models to the smart home ecosystem, and one of the most useful features is more descriptive alerts than mine. Nest Security Camera. So, instead of “person seeing” it can tell me that FedEx has arrived and dropped off two packages
In the two weeks since I allowed Gemini to have my Google Home, I’ve enjoyed the ability to locate delivery drivers the most. At the end of the day, I can ask the Google Home app, “How many packages arrived today” and get an accurate answer. Nice to know it’s FedEx at the door, in my opinion Nest doorbellAnd a salesman did not offer to replace my windows. Yet for all his smarts, Gemini refuses to understand that I don’t have a cat at home.
Seen person
screenshotGoogle Home via Julian Chokkattu
Google isn’t the only company building its smart-home ecosystem with AI. Amazon recently announced a feature on its Ring Camera Called a search party That will help someone find their lost dog using the neighborhood’s valuable outdoor ring camera. (I don’t need to stretch to imagine something like this Being used for nefarious purposes.)
In early October, Google has updated The voice assistant in its smart-home devices—some of which have been around for a decade—replaces Google Assistant with Gemini. For the most part, Asst is Well it can understand multiple commands in a spoken sentence or two, and you can easily tell it to automate things around your home without messing with the Google Home app’s Routines tab. And when I ask it a simple question, it usually gives me some kind of reliable answer without sending me to the Google search page.
Smart camera alerts are more helpful at a glance. Most of the time, I dismiss in-person notifications because they often just walk by my house Now the warnings actually say “person walks” which gives me more confidence to dismiss them Some warnings correctly say “two people opened the gate,” although sometimes it will hallucinate: “person walking up the stairs,” when in fact no one did. (They just walked on the sidewalk.) It fairly accurately notes when UPS, FedEx, or USPS are at the door, which is nice to know when I’m busy or out, so I can make sure to check a package when I get home — no need to search through alerts.
But with my indoor security camera, Gemini regularly says there’s a cat wandering around my house. This is my dog. Even in my home brief at the end of the day from Gemini about what happened around the house—Gemini says, “In the early morning, a white cat was active, going into the living room and sitting on the sofa.” It’s funny, especially considering my dog ​​hates cats.
Catdog
.PNG)
screenshotGoogle Home via Julian Chokkattu
You’d think I could fix it say This smart assistant says, “Hey, I don’t have a cat. I have a dog,” and it will adjust its models and fix the error. Well, I’m right about that. In the Ask Home feature, you can talk to Gemini and ask anything about the home. Here you can tell it to set up automation, for example. When my wife or I got home, I asked the cameras to turn on the living room light and it understood the action. It even assumed that I wanted the light to turn on when arriving at night, though I forgot to mention that.
