Google announced a major redesign for the Google Home app at its I/O conference earlier this month. Some of those changes are now rolling out to users with version 3.1 of the app. You’re getting a UI revamp and some functional improvements with the latest update.
For starters, Google Home on tablets now places the contents of each tab in new containers with rounded corners. These containers sit distinctly from the left navigation rail that lets you quickly switch tabs between Favorites, Devices, Automations, Activity, and Settings. The navigation rail and the top app bar share the same background.
In the Devices tab, Google has added a secondary navigation rail that only appears in the landscape orientation. It lists all your rooms, letting you quickly scroll to a particular room (via 9to5Google). This is particularly helpful if you have several devices grouped in multiple rooms (four or more). There’s no such secondary navigation element in the Favorites tab where you find your favorite devices and shortcuts to cameras, lighting, and Wi-Fi.
This update changes the lighting controllers as well. Google has replaced the brightness with a pill-shaped slider, along with six preset temperature options (smaller pills) next to or below it depending on the device’s orientation. A lighting FAB brings up a new sheet on top of those options. It has two tabs — Temperature and Color. The former gives a strip to control temperature, while the latter has a circular color picker. Google Home 3.1 also tweaks the controller page for other devices.
The latest Google Home update is now rolling out widely
This major UI revamp of the Google Home app has been in the works for a long time now. The company opened an invite-only preview of this redesign to interested users a few months back.
The plan was to test and refine the proposed changes based on feedback from users. At I/O, it revealed that more than 500,000 people signed up to test the new UI, adding that the changes will be available to users globally over the next few weeks.
Google Home version 3.1 now brings a handful of those refinements to users all over the world. If you’re into Google’s smart home ecosystem, you might want to download this update straightaway. You can click the button below to install the latest version of the app from the Google Play Store. If the update isn’t yet available for you, fret not. You’ll soon get it. Watch out for more updates for the Google Home app.
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