Hey Google, this is terrible!

Let me list the ways that my Google Nest Hub upgrading to Gemini has frustrated me recently.

Intro

Recently Gemini replaced the Google Assistant on my Google Nest Hub and I’ve never experienced a scenario where an “upgrade” was such a downgrade. I needed a place to vent.

I understand that this has an “old man yells at cloud” vibe initially, but please hear me out.

Background

I’ve owned a Google Nest Hub for years. I’m a heavy YouTube user (understatement of the decade) and thought that having a dedicated device where YouTube videos could be watched in the kitchen would be great.

Generally speaking I’ve been happy with it with one exception, which is unfortunately the main reason I bought it. Selecting the video you want to watch on YouTube can be so painful. Unfortunately it can only be done via voice. Being able to search for videos only by voice search is a level of frustration I didn’t know existed because it frequently misunderstands me.

And my absolute favorite: “show me new videos about Apple Watch” became videos about Apple in general. I think it was trying to show me “Apple” videos you can “watch”.

Yes, I did submit feedback about this multiple times.

I frequently find myself have to go get my iPhone so I can search for the video there and then cast it to my Google Nest Hub, which kind of defeats the purpose.

The Good Ole Days

As I mentioned I was otherwise happy with my Google Nest Hub but that was about to change drastically. Recently, it was updated to replace the Google Assistant with Gemini.

If I was in charge of a huge transition such as this here these would be my top goals that I would do everything possible to meet:

• Commands that customers have been using (for years) should still produce the same results.
• If functionality is going to change it should be an improvement.
• No functionality should be removed.

In every single way that I use my Google Nest Hub it’s become worse. Let me list them for you.

Continued Conversation

With continued conversation enabled you could keep speaking a chain of commands without having to say “Hey Google” every time. I immediately noticed it stopped working after Gemini. I couldn’t find a way to turn it back. Apparently it’s a paid feature now.

Show Me New Videos About

Previously I could say “Show me new videos about [topic]” and it would present I’d say 6-8 search results on YouTube. While it would frequently misunderstand me, at least there was a chance that I could see what I was looking for in the results and pick it. Now with the same command it will just start playing what it thinks the best result is.

I just said “Play new videos about Marvel Snap”. The good news is that it played a video about Marvel Snap. The bad news is that the new video it picked was from July 2023.

My Living Room

I have a smart plug I named “living room” that’s in the room classified as a living room. I later added another smart plug to the same room. Saying “turn on living room” would turn on the smart plug called living room. After Gemini saying the same phrase will turn on both smart plugs. The argument could be made that this is the correct behavior, but what happened with my attempted solution is so absurd I had to mention it.

To remove the name conflict I renamed the smart plug from “living room” to George (Looney Tunes fans will get it).

BUT now when I say “turn on George” that gets understood as “turn on Georges” and for some reason it starts playing music from YouTube Music. BUT then if say “Hey Google, stop” and “Hey Google, turn on George” it once again thinks I’m saying “turn on Georges” but correctly turns on the George smart plug. I’ve repeated this interaction multiple times. I guess doing the same action for the same command is too much to ask for?

Turn On The Bedroom

I have smart plugs in my master bedroom and guest bedroom but the smart plug in the guest bedroom has been unplugged for months.

“Turn on the bedroom” has always turned on the master bedroom. After Gemini it still usually does, except for the times where it sometimes asks “Which one?”

Why yes, I did mean for you to turn on the plug that hasn’t been plugged in for months and not the one you’ve been controlling every single day.

Tell Me Your Thoughts

This has only happened once, but it was incredibly bizarre. When I asked for the weather what I got instead was the AI speaking out its (long) internal reasoning:

“The user is asking about the weather at ____” followed by a long, rambling continuation.

Google Maps

This is the one that really blew my mind. Previously I could say “How long to [destination]” and it would bring up a Google Maps interface showing the route and give me an estimate based on the current traffic. I made use of this a lot. When I did the same thing with Gemini there was no map shown. It was just a wall of text. I also got the impression that it was making an estimate based on historical data and not the current traffic situation. Asking for clarification confirmed that:

I did some testing and asked it how long it would take me to get to a destination. It confidently told me 36-37 minutes. I looked at both Apple Maps and Google Maps on my iPhone and they both reported around 25 minutes.

I’m Done

I’m really not someone who gets stuck in their ways with technology and doesn’t want things to change. I love trying new things and getting upgrades to my devices and operating systems. But upgrades should be just that, upgrades. It feels the total opposite happened with my Google Nest Hub.

I can’t wait to replace it if Apple ever comes out with a competing product.