Google’s new smart home subscription, called Home Premium, rolled out nearly a year ago to replace Nest Aware. It’s 25% more expensive than those old Nest Aware plans, and although Google Home Premium is packed with new Gemini for Home features, subscribers were skeptical the upgrades were worth the higher cost. Currently, Home Premium costs $10 per month for the Standard plan or $20 per month for the Advanced plan. If you choose to pay yearly, it’s still more expensive — the plans now run you $100 annually for Home Premium Standard or $200 for Home Premium Advanced.

Most people would consider canceling their subscription after a price hike, but I did the opposite. I wasn’t a Nest Aware subscriber despite using Google Home and Nest smart home accessories. I used the free Nest Doorbell features and avoided a subscription fee. When Google Home Premium came out, I invested deeper in Nest gadgets and signed up for the Home Premium Advanced plan. About a year later, I’m moving down to Home Premium Standard, and I don’t feel like I’m missing a thing.

Gemini for Home is great, but the best features are free

Your Google Nest smart home gadgets are surprisingly capable

Gemini for Home proved to be a major upgrade to my smart home ecosystem. Those who lived with Google Assistant during its final days likely remember an experience plagued by failed automations, dropped requests, and frequent bugs. Gemini for Home is mixed with new features and general stability improvements — and many of the perks are completely free.

Google Nest cameras are entirely dependent on the cloud for recording and streaming, and many users subscribe to Google Home Premium for access to longer event recordings. But even without an active subscription, free Google Home users benefit from the new subscription tiers. Under the Nest Aware setup, free users only got event-based cloud video recordings for three hours. Now, free users can view recordings for six hours, which might be long enough for those that keep tabs on their Google Home notifications.

Without a subscription, Google Home users still get alerts for people, animals, vehicles, motion, and packages. All the basics are covered, including Live View, Activity Zones, Filters for event history, and Camera Automation. Beyond cameras, the Gemini for Home assistant is completely free. So is Continued Conversation, the feature that lets you ask follow-up questions without repeating “Hey Google.” You can also use the Ask Home chatbot questions about your home and your smart home gadgets.

Some features, like Gemini Live, probably should be included free with Home and Nest gadgets, but are hidden behind a paywall. Generally speaking, the core features you need to operate Google Home and Nest speakers, thermostats, displays, and cameras are all free. The Google Home Premium subscriptions, and especially the higher-priced Advanced plan, are just luxuries.

Google Home Premium Advanced wasn’t worth it

The real perk is 24/7 video recording, and most of us don’t need it

I lived in a high-traffic area for years before subscribing to Google Home Premium Advanced, and that meant I received tens or hundreds of camera notifications from my Nest doorbell daily. It was too overwhelming to keep track of everything, and it’s why I decided to splurge for Home Premium Advanced in the first place.

On top of my Google AI Pro subscription — which bundles Google Home Premium Standard, Google Health Premium, and YouTube Premium Lite with a $20 monthly fee — switching to the Advanced only cost an extra $10 per month.

Google Home Premium Advanced added AI notification summaries, descriptions, and a “Home Brief” recap of the day. To Google’s credit, the features did work. I saw a short summary of every recorded video event directly in the notifications from Google Home, and often, they accurately described the scene.

It was helpful to know when a delivery driver from Amazon, FedEx, or UPS dropped off a package beyond the vague “Person with package” notifications you get with the free version. Camera history search was genuinely useful, as I could ask Gemini a specific question about what my cameras saw and get a quick answer.

Beyond those two use cases, I struggled to find ways Home Premium Advanced actually made my life easier. Home Brief worked well enough, but it usually didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. The summary arrives late at night, so even if it did reveal something I missed, it would’ve been too late for me to act on it.

Aside from telling me which carrier delivered a package, the AI notification summaries weren’t very insightful. “Person in blue shirt walks in front of door” isn’t any more informative than “Person seen,” even if the former is indeed more descriptive.

Google’s Home Premium Standard plan is the sweet spot

You already have it if you’re a Google AI Pro subscriber

Stepping down to the Google Home Premium Standard plan was absolutely the right move. I save $120 per year by skipping the Advanced tier, and I don’t miss it. I’ve used Home Premium Standard for a week after using Advanced for nearly a year, and the base subscription tier still helps me keep tabs on my home. If anything, the nondescript notifications incentivize me to watch the video previews and see for myself if my cameras recorded something important.

Compared to the free tier, Home Premium Standard offers enough extra perks to justify its $10 monthly cost. Help me Create is an incredible perk, since you can use natural-language prompts to guide Gemini in building complex smart home automations for you — and it’s included with Standard. Home Premium Standard also adds familiar face detection, sound detection, and zoomed-in previews, all of which make Google Home notifications more informative even without the AI summaries.

You also get event-based recordings up to five minutes in length, each stored for 30 days. That’s plenty of time, although the Advanced plan does unlock 60-day video history and 24/7 recording on supported cameras. In my experience, Advanced is only worth it if you think 24/7 recording is an essential feature. Otherwise, the upgrades aren’t enticing enough to justify paying twice as much.

And the Google AI Pro plan sweetens the deal, if you use a lot of Google services. For $20 per month, you get Home Premium Standard, Health Premium, YouTube Premium Lite, 5TB of cloud storage, and more. It’s exactly the value I wanted from a Google subscription, and it’s what got me to try Home Premium in the first place. The Advanced add-on just isn’t worth the extra cash.

Dimensions

3.4 height x 4.2 diameter (inches)

Audio

58 mm full-range driver

Connectivity

Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax (2.4 GHz/5 GHz), Bluetooth 5.4, Thread 1.3 border router (2.4 GHz)

Colors

Hazel, Porcelain, Jade, Berry

SMART ASSISTANTS

Gemini

Brand

Google

The Google Home Speaker is Google’s answer to the HomePod, powered by Gemini for Home. It comes in four slick colors and offers powerful 360° sound and a slick design in a compact package.