Long-awaited Google Now voice controls might soon be coming to Nest

By Drew Prindle December 15, 2014

nest google now voice controlled thermostat screen shot 2014 12 15 at 10 41 50 am — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Back when Nest first announced its “Works with Nest” developer program, the company promised that, in the not-so-distant future, Learning Thermostat owners would be able to control their homes’ temperature via Google Now commands spoken into their mobile devices. You’d be able to say something like, “Ok, Google, set the temperature to 70 degrees,” and Nest would magically obey. We haven’t seen this function appear quite yet, but signs suggest that it’s just a few steps away from being released into the wild.

Droid-Life has discovered that Google Now currently responds to temperature requests and will attempt to set the temp on your Nest thermostat when you ask. The only problem is that all the steps aren’t finished, so Google fails to complete the task initially. After you speak your command, Google Now will recognize the request, fail (because it’s not connected to a thermostat), and then bring up a card. Here, it’ll ask you to authorize your Google account to work with Nest. You can tap the “Yes, I’m in” button, but you’ll be redirected to a page that’s not quite live yet. This authorization step is the last piece of the puzzle; once it goes live, we’ll be in business.

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Furthermore, based on the screenshots in the picture above, it appears that there will actually be two different integrations rolling out soon — one for setting the temperature via spoken commands, and another that’ll use geofencing to recognize when you’re on your way home so that Nest can adjust the temperature before you arrive.

Exactly how much longer we’ve got to wait for these features to be released is anybody’s guess at this point, but it definitely seems like it’s just around the corner.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Drew Prindle is an award-winning writer, editor, and storyteller who currently serves as Senior Features Editor for Digital…

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