On July 8, Google held the online version of the "Hey Google" smart home summit.

• Voice Assistant

• Works with Nest

• Connected Home Over IP

• IP Connected Home Over IP

At last year's Google I/O conference, Google emphasized the corporate vision of to build a more helpful Google for everyone. Google no longer just helps users "find" solutions, but hopes to help users "complete" transactions through every product they build.

For example, during the writing process of Gmail, Google will give users a prompt to help users complete the sentences they intend to write. Search on Google Map can also directly help users find the fastest route to go home. In the home scenario, it helps people better manage home equipment and helps users create truly automated and more convenient home life.

△ Voice writing email demonstrated by Google at I/O last year

The epidemic of the new crown epidemic has given many people more time to stay at home, live, work, and study, and this state may last for a long time, and the use of smart home devices is also increasing. Smart speakers and smart screens are being used by more people as a form of entertainment. Smart TVs have also become the new normal, and data from survey agencies show that more than 80% of households in the United States have at least one smart connected TV.

Based on this, what changes will Google’s smart home ecosystem change?

has no new hardware release, no speakers or TV sticks

In the past, hardware represented by smart speakers is the highlight of Google I/O, but at this Smart Home Summit, we did not see any related hardware releases.

But on the same day, a new Google hardware just passed the FCC certification, which means its release date is not far away.

It may be Google's new smart speaker. A month ago, Google announced that its first smart speaker, Google Home, will be permanently removed from the shelves, replaced by the Nest brand-led smart speaker series.

, the recently rumored smart speaker codenamed "prince" will be an upgraded version of Google Home, and the appearance design continues the design language of Nest Mini and Nest Hub, and is expected to be released later this year.

But this model is the new hardware of GXCA6, which is more like a TV stick code-named "sabina" prepared by Google for Android TV. It is an oval, smart device with an HDMI interface, similar to a USB flash drive, which can be plugged directly into a large screen device and turned it into an Android TV or Android tablet.

The device is expected to be released later this year along with products such as the Pixel 4a, with an estimated price of around $80.

has added support for 6 new home entertainment devices

More and more people use TVs, remote controls, set-top boxes, speakers, echo walls, game consoles and other entertainment devices in the living room. Google will collectively call this type of home entertainment device support SHED (Smart Home for Entertainment Devices).

This time, Google has added support for 6 new smart entertainment devices, including AV receivers, streaming boxes, streaming sticks, soundbars, streaming soundbars, and speakers.

uses the newly released SHED feature through the open API, and users can directly wake up the device, open a game, or a TV program, and complete volume control and other operations.

△ Google’s TV

, which cooperated with Hisense, displayed at CES 2020, launched the small function of “Natural Sleeping and Wake Up”

. To help people fall asleep and wake up better and avoid the bad mood caused by sharp alarm sounds, Google has launched the “Natural Sleeping and Wake Up” function for all connected smart homes.

The wake-up function will slowly adjust the light before the alarm clock rings, simulating the sunrise and let you wake up naturally.When you fall asleep, you can gradually dim the light, allowing you to relax while you fall asleep.

This function can be seamlessly integrated with the morning alarm clock, and can be achieved through settings or direct contact. Developers can also simulate brightness and color commands to integrate or build a personalized experience for users.

Google enabled this feature for the first time on Philips Hue last year and will be logged on to more devices later this year.

system-level smart home controls will appear in Android 11

Over the past two years, Google has been committed to creating some basic functions for smart home experiences. First, the voice control device is implemented; then the touch function is added, combining voice and touch to realize multi-modal interaction of the smart screen; and gradually expand this function to the operating system. Android 11, which will be launched later this year, will provide a permanently dedicated smart home control area.

Google has redesigned the Home menu, where smart home controls can be displayed directly. Press and hold the Home key to quickly access these controls. Google even designed a sliding control that can adjust specific settings such as light and volume. Users can also customize control items and directly access controls from the lock screen state.

In order to ensure the privacy and security of the device, each device needs to be authenticated to be used in this mode. Before authorization, users can choose to completely hide these spaces. The new feature of

may be one of the best features of Android 11 and will be fully released on September 8 this year, which indirectly reveals the launch time of Android 11.

launches platforms and tools to help locally executed application development

To ensure that smart home controls can accurately report the status of connected smart home devices, Google also provides tools to measure data reliability and manipulation delays to help developers improve and debug status reports.

To help solve the reliability and latency issues, Google released local execution through the Local Home SDK in April this year. Local execution extends smart home operations and Root commands to the device, avoiding additional cloud jump operations, allowing users to enjoy lower latency and higher reliability.

extended reading: At last year's I/O conference, Google launched the Local Home SDK for all developers. The solution will process the collected voice commands, data processing, and final feedback execution locally, thereby realizing local smart home devices linkage and control, improving the response speed and security of the device. Click the link to view the special report: "Offline voice recognition, local control, Local Home SDK makes Google better on the track of smart home." The

Local Home platform supports Chrome and Node.js running environments, and supports the development, construction and testing of applications on local computers or on personal servers.

After developing locally executed applications, users can use them immediately without upgrading hardware or manually updating firmware.

Google's native execution solution ensures that the smart home platform supports real-time control and seamless integration of the developer experience. The

function has been implemented locally executed application development through many Google partners, and even Philips Hue, Nanoleaf, and Yeelight have launched some locally executed applications.

Improve the association of third-party applications and jump to

through AppFlip to achieve high-quality integration, which can reduce user churn during device use.

To this end, Google launches the "AppFlip" application on the developer console to quickly associate, simplifying the connection process of the standard account to 2 steps. Users can quickly connect users to third-party partner apps from the Google Home app without additional login.

Given that most Google Assistant-based smart home users will log in from the device app, this is a good opportunity to initiate an account connection. Here you can enable feature recommendations or in-app notifications to increase the awareness of the app.

provides logging tool

To improve development efficiency, Google also integrates monitoring and troubleshooting tools in Google Cloud Platform to provide detailed event logs and usage measurements for smart home projects.

Google improves project logging in three aspects - Local Home SDK, account associations, and assistant events, helping developers quickly debug and solve problems using Google Cloud logging.

Developers can analyze aggregated metrics from the developer console, such as Daily Active Users (DAUs) and Request Breakdown, or build log-based metrics and trends.

If there are any problems with the integration, developers can create custom alerts in GCP and get notified.

updates device access permissions and makes it more convenient to integrate with Nest devices

Last year, Google changed the "Works with Nest" plan to a plan to transition to the "Works with Google Assistant" ecosystem. At the same time, on the basis of protecting privacy and data security, Google will also strive to protect consumers' home data.

In order to achieve a better ecosystem transition, Google has launched the "Device Access" program to facilitate partners to integrate with Nest devices through APIs.

Google will also launch the "Device Access Console", which is a "self-service console" that can help developers complete processes including development, certification, testing, and publishing.

intelligently detects the "at home/outdoor" status and triggers the schedule, which will expand to more third-party devices

Previously, Nest devices could automatically trigger the schedule based on whether the user is at home or out. This feature has been well received, and Google is also preparing to expand it to other third-party devices.

Further Reading: At this year's CES exhibition, Google showed off the sticky notes feature of Nest Hub. Nest Hub can intelligently detect whether the owner is at home, and remind the owner of the to-do matters that day when he is at home. Click the link to view the special report: "Google Assistant Full Experience: After more than 500 million monthly active users, multiple cross-scene functions such as privacy, offline voice, etc.".

Later this year, more Google Assistant-enabled devices can detect users’ status at home/outdoor status and then automatically trigger the schedule. Users can even choose which device (smart speaker or smartphone) to use to collect data used to determine the user's status at home/out.

developers can not only build schedules for users based on their own devices, but also build schedules that collaborate with other devices.

IP Internet Home Project Update

Google finally updated the progress of the "IP Internet Home Project" to developers.

Last December, the Amazon , Apple, Google and Zigbee alliance announced the joint formation of a working group called "IP Connected Home" to develop and promote the adoption of new smart home connectivity standards.

is similar to how USB has evolved into a plug-and-play connection standard, a program designed to improve compatibility between smart home products in various brands. The key to this plan is to use IP as the basic building block in the standard. At present, there is no widely used open standard for smart homes built on IP, but IP is the most commonly used network layer interconnection protocol in homes and offices. Because IP has the characteristic of connection independence, it is an ideal network connection method to achieve end-to-end security.

△ "IP Connected Home Project" working group member

Google will become a staunch supporter of this new connection standard, and finally revealed that the preliminary specifications for the "IP Connected Home Project" will be released later in 2020.

Wanli Summary

This year, due to the epidemic, Google I/O is undoubtedly a regret for developers, and it also gives us some illusion. It seems that Google has not been moving for a long time and no new products have been released.

But judging from Google's release, we have summarized two major trends:

Finally, as defined in the beginning, this is a Google conference for smart home developers. What are your expectations for these updates? Welcome to leave a message to tell us.

WeChat ID: shenzhenware

Main author: Chen Yiling / Shenzhen Bay

Editor: Forest Wood / Shenzhen Bay