Google’s plans to improve your smart home experience aren’t just limited to bringing Gemini to your devices. The company is also updating its Google Home app to make your Nest Camera recordings even more useful.
According to a new post on the Nest Help Forum, the latest update to the Google Home app brings improvements to the Familiar Face Detection feature, designed to help your cameras more accurately identify the people who visit your home. The feature is based on Google’s Familiar Face recognition algorithm, which uses images stored in the Familiar Face library to recognize people.
Google notes that the library sometimes contains low-quality images with blurry or incomplete faces, which may affect recognition accuracy. With this update, the company has improved the quality of images stored in the library and made the recognition of familiar faces more reliable.
Your Nest cameras are also getting smarter at detecting pets
The update also brings improvements to the animal detection feature, allowing Nest cameras to “better distinguish between cats and dogs remotely, reducing misidentifications.” It also improves the handling of animal colors to “ensure greater color accuracy and minimize false animal colors in low light conditions.”
In addition to improvements for identifying familiar faces and animals, the Google Home app update improves how the Home Brief feature describes people during events where a familiar face is not identified. The company has also improved AI descriptions for longer videos, which should now provide more detailed context and insights.
These improvements should result in fewer false alarms and more accurate notifications, so you don’t get a barrage of unnecessary notifications every time someone walks by your door or your cat jumps on the couch. For example, when a delivery person shows up, your Nest Camera should now correctly identify them without confusing them with a familiar visitor. Likewise, pets wandering into the image should be recognized more reliably, even in poor lighting conditions.
