Google has quietly turned up the speed on its Gemini for Home upgrade, promising that most US users who sign up for early access will now get an invite within 24 hours. The company says "millions of households" already have access, and this wave includes support for some third‑party smart speakers as the beta widens beyond Google’s own Nest lineup.
What’s changing, quickly
If you’ve been hovering over the Google Home app waiting for an invite, there’s a better chance it will finally land soon. Google is accelerating the server-side rollout for its Gemini replacement for Google Assistant on speakers and displays. Previously a slow trickle, the early access invites are being sent at a much faster pace and — according to Google — anyone in the US who hasn’t yet been invited can sign up and should receive one within about a day.
The upgrade is opt-in and per‑home (so different Homes tied to the same account may get invites at different times). When you accept, your Nest or compatible third‑party speaker switches from Assistant to Gemini; Google warns this is a one‑way move during the beta.
New capabilities and a few warnings
Gemini for Home brings more natural dialog, longer context windows, and some features that make the smart home feel more conversational. Early testers and reports highlight a feature called "conversations across devices" that lets voice‑matched users continue a chat as they move from room to room — ask a question in the kitchen and pick it up in the living room without repeating yourself.
During setup you’ll be asked to choose guest filters (controlling how much personal info guests can access), and you can pick from several new voice options. Google has noted the experience is currently English‑only and that performance and integrations may continue to evolve over the course of the beta.
Important cautions:- The beta is US‑only for now.
- Switching to Gemini on a Home is currently irreversible in the beta period.
- In some rare cases a sign‑up won’t immediately produce an invite if the home contains an incompatible device or account setup.
Devices getting the upgrade
Google lists compatibility across a wide range of Nest and legacy Google Home hardware, including Nest Hub (1st & 2nd gen), Nest Hub Max, Nest Audio, Nest Mini (2nd gen), Google Home Max, Google Home, Home Mini (1st gen) and Nest Wifi point. Reports from the field suggest at least a handful of third‑party devices — an Insignia speaker sold by Best Buy and some Lenovo devices — have also seen the update surface for certain users, which signals Google is working with partners to expand reach faster than many expected.
To enroll: open the Google Home app, tap your profile picture, go to Home settings and look for Early Access. Make sure your app is up to date (some reports say v4.1 or newer is necessary) and check the right Home if you manage more than one.
Why this matters
Putting Gemini into ambient devices is more than a feature rollout; it’s part of Google’s push to embed its large‑model assistant everywhere — on phones, in Maps and now in the places where people actually talk to their homes. Expect this experiment to inform how Gemini handles household tasks, media control, voice matching and contextual handoffs in multiroom setups.
This move also ties into Google’s broader efforts to stitch Gemini across different products. For example, the company has been evolving Gemini’s ability to search personal files and email in other products, which could eventually change how a home assistant sources answers as Gemini’s Deep Research features expand. And the presence of Gemini in ambient devices echoes Google’s experimentation with agentic booking and AI modes elsewhere in its ecosystem that add proactive, task‑oriented capabilities as well as conversational copilots in mapping and navigation already appearing in Maps.
What to expect in practice
For most testers the switch will feel like a smarter, more natural Assistant. Expect better follow‑ups, fewer rigid voice commands, and — if you move between rooms — the ability to pick up a conversation. But because this is an early access program, you may see rough edges: latency differences, intermittent third‑party integration gaps, or behavior that still needs tuning.
If you’re protective of the way guests and family members interact with your devices, pay attention to the guest filters during setup. And, if you rely on particular voice shortcuts or niche smart‑home routines, keep in mind those behaviors can change when the assistant’s underlying logic is replaced.
If you want to know whether an invite has already passed you by, check the Home settings in the Google Home app for in‑app notifications. The rollout is still staging, so even with the faster cadence you may see invites land in waves across homes and accounts.
Whether Gemini for Home becomes the new normal for smart speakers will depend on how smoothly Google irons out those early problems and how broadly the company opens the test beyond the US. For now, if you’ve signed up for early access and haven’t seen anything yet, another short wait might be all that stands between your Nest and a decidedly more conversational assistant.