If you're a Google Home and Nest smart home ecosystem user, you're likely more than a little frustrated at this point. Over the past few months, especially as Google's attention continues to turn to Gemini, smart speakers like the Nest Audio have become unresponsive and terrible at controlling smart home devices. In my house, my various Nest Audio speakers have become so bad at turning my Philips Hue lights on/off that I've considered getting rid of them entirely for Amazon's Echo smart speakers.

Google is aware of these problems and, surprisingly, Anish Kattukaran, the Chief Product Officer forHome and Nest, has even gone so far as to directly acknowledge them in a post on X. He's also stated in various interviews that Gemini for Home will solve the Home ecosystem and Assistant's rampant reliability issues. The only problem is Gemini's rollout on Home and Nest devices has been painfully slow, with only a select number of users getting into the early access beta. This is why Reddit user Siciliano777 took matters into his own hands (via Gizmodo).

Those looking to use Gemini for Home a bit early on their Google Home and Nest Audio devices, will be happy to know that this trick only requires cutting and pasting a URL, alongside a few taps, though it's unclear if this method will work for everyone.

Unfortunately, it didn't work with my Nest Audios

Your mileage may vary with this one

To see if this trick will work for you, all you need to do is cut and paste "googlehome://assistant/voice/setup" into your Chrome address bar on iOS or Android, and then select the second link option. This should bring up the Google Home app and take you through the Gemini for Home upgrade process. In my case, everything seemed like it was working at first and the app even allowed me to select a new voice for Google Assistant's replacement.

Unfortunately, unlike some Reddit users that have tried this low-key hack, I didn't actually get access to Gemini for Home and instead, Google Assistant's voice was just replaced with Gemini's voice options. The new voices are undeniably a step above Google's default Assistant (how can you not like ample vocal fry?), but I still don't actually have access to Gemini. That said, the trick seems to have worked for a lot of people, so your location could have something to do with the success rate (I'm located in Canada).

With all of this in mind, do I actually think Gemini will solve all of Google's smart home woes? I still don't know if I totally buy Google's lofty claims. The AI-powered voice-activated assistant can at times be impressive on smartphones, so I'm hopeful the tech giant can get it running reliably on its smart home devices.

If you give this Gemini for Home URL trick a try, and it works, let us know in the comments below.