Google’s smart home strategy has seen many false starts over the last decade and a half. From the early 2010 iteration of Google TV to the ill-fated Nexus Q, everything was funky and experimental. Then Google Assistant and the first Google Home smart speaker launched and it seemed like Mountain View finally knew what it wanted to do with the smart home. Fast forward seven years or so and things have taken so many twists and turns that it’s starting to feel like another episode of Google’s messaging app saga.
But let’s back up a bit. Few products in Google’s line-up have shown a relatively stable vision over the decades. Search, Maps, Photos, and Gmail count among those most steady, unsurprising services. Everything else, from Wallet-Pay-Wallet to Google TV-Android TV-Google TV or Gsuite free-paid-Workspace has seen more ups and downs than I can count. None, however, has been as confusing or flippity-floppity as Google’s smorgasbord of messaging services and strategies.