Smart Home Interconnectivity with Google Nest Hub

Smart Home Series: Post 04

In my first smart home series post, you learned how understanding the ecosystem concept will help you choose which smart home products to put in your home. After extensive research, we chose Google and Nest as our main hubs due to simplicity of use and ease of integration. At the time, Nest was an ecosystem all on its own, and since it’s owned by Google, it integrated perfectly into our Google ecosystem. Recently, however, that integration went to a whole new level—Nest became…Google Nest. Judging by some of the comments I got on YouTube, confusion ensued!

No worries though. I’m here to clear it up! I’m going to break down what this means and show you the interconnectivity between the Google Nest Hub and other products I received thanks to my partnership with The Home Depot.

WATCH THE VIDEO (and continue reading below):

Google Nest Hub (Formerly “Google Home Hub”)

If you’ve been keeping up with my smart home series, then you’ve seen me review several products I’ve added to my smart home family so far, including my Nest security system, Philips Hue Lights, and Samsung Smart Fridge. I haven’t even gone over all the other Nest products I have too, like Nest Thermostat, but the beautiful thing is all these products integrate with Google!

Google Assistant is the heart of my smart home ecosystem. There are different Google Assistant devices you can put throughout your home to control your smart tech, but the one that has the most features is Google Nest Hub because it has a display. So not only does it respond to voice commands, but it can display what you want to see on its screen.

HOW GOOGLE NEST HUB INTEGRATES WITH MY SMART HOME DEVICES

Interconnectivity: Google Nest Hub x Nest

Earlier this month Google announced that it would be integrating the Nest brand into its wider line of Google Home products. They are changing their “Works with Nest” program to “Works with Google Assistant.” Google already owned Nest to begin with, so this announcement didn’t really affect me since Google Assistant is the heart of my ecosystem.

Google made this move for privacy reasons. By eliminating the Works with Nest program, third-party devices will have far less access to the data captured by Nest’s products like its smart thermostats, smoke detectors, cameras, alarms, etc., and therefor fewer potential opportunities for abuse.

I use so many Nest products in my home and I can use the Google Nest Hub smart display in a variety of useful ways. Here are a few examples of how I use the display to view my Nest products:

• NEST HELLO VIDEO DOORBELL:

With my Google Nest Hub, I can see exactly who’s at my door when someone rings the Nest Hello Video Doorbell. I can pull up the live video stream at any time and get visitor announcements.

• NEST CAMS:

Just like with the doorbell, I can view live video streams from the Nest outdoor cameras and indoor cameras I have throughout my home.

• NEST THERMOSTATS:

One product I haven’t gone over in detail is my Nest Learning Thermostat! This is yet another Nest product that I can control from my Nest app, as well as my Google Nest Hub. These smart thermostats (I have two—one upstairs and one downstairs) can help you save energy and money. It’s ENERGY STAR certified—it learns what temperature you like and operates according to your habits. Studies have shown that it has saved people 10%-12% on heating bills and 15% on cooling bills.

With Google Nest Hub, you can change the temperature and switch between heating, cooling, and Eco modes, just like you can from your phone.

Interconnectivity: Google Nest Hub x Philips Hue

Google and my Philips Hue lighting also have beautiful interconnectivity. If you watched my Philips Hue video, you may have noticed the part where I commanded my Google Assistant to adjust the lights. I provided two examples—of how I could tell it to turn on/off the lights and also turn it down/up to a specific percentage, like 10% for example.

There are TONS of Philips Hue commands you can give to any of the Google Assistant devices, but the situations that come in handy specifically for the Google Nest Hub, are ones where you want to have the kind of control over the color and brightness that requires you to visually see them on a smart display. I can say “Hey Google, turn on the kitchen lights”—the lights will come on, and different options will appear on the display for you to configure the lights to how you want it. I can slide my finger on the brightness to get it to my desired percentage. I can choose from a number of color options that pop up to create the mood I want. I can also isolate individual lights in the room if I want.

Interconnectivity: Google Nest Hub x Samsung Family Hub

Although the Samsung Family Hub Smart Fridge operates off of a command system of its own, SmartThings, it still allows you to integrate with Google in various ways. You can view your Google calendar on the fridge display for example. You can also add SmartThings to your Google Home app. If there are smart devices in your SmartThings app that integrate with Google, the Google Home app will detect it. I tested this out, and sure enough, it detected my smart fridge! My Google hub pulled up my refrigerator cooler, freezer, and I tested out a voice command too—“Hey Google, did I leave my refrigerator door open?” It told me it was open.

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GOOGLE NEST HUB: FINAL THOUGHTS + WHERE TO BUY

I am so happy we chose to build our smart home around Google. The interconnectivity of many of my smart devices makes my smart home so efficient. The Google Nest Hub is kinda like the command center for it all.

I use it to automate tasks on top of a plethora of other uses–like listening to music, watching YouTube videos, pulling up vegan recipes, maximizing productivity, and more. For example, saying “Hey Google, good morning” launches a readout of the weather, your schedule, morning commute, reminders, activities and notifications for the day ahead, all from the home screen.

We got our Google Nest Hub from The Home Depot. One glance at their online Smart Home tool and you can see The Home Depot is a leader in the smart home movement. If you are looking to build your smart home, start with the resources they provide on their website to guide you!

Tell me: How would you use the Google Nest Hub to automate your life? Drop a comment below!

*This is Post #4 of my Smart Home series. Find the rest here!

*This post was sponsored by The Home Depot, but trust–all opinions are ALL me.

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