Key Takeaways
- Google Home’s new widget UI offers speedier updates with a dedicated refresh button.
- A possible “Suggested” feature may streamline adding your most-used smart devices to the widget.
- Although not yet official, the new features found in the APK teardown hint at an enhanced user experience for Google Home users.
Smart devices are convenient, but only if they can be easily controlled. The Google Home widget has always been an excellent tool for turning your gear on and off, but it has an unfortunately slow refresh rate. If you open the widget, it might not be up to date — it has a roughly half-hour update schedule. Power users have gotten around this issue by toggling a random device, but the most recent update offers a much easier solution.
Which means speedier updates
According to the folks at Android Authority, version 3.24.1.4 of the Google Home app adds a new widget UI that contains a dedicated refresh button. All you have to do is tap it, and it will accurately display the current status of your saved smart devices. In addition, it shows the last time the app was refreshed (particularly useful if you’re troubleshooting a smart gadget.) This might not seem like a huge change, but small factors often have a greater impact on the user experience than you might expect.
Google Home might also add a new “Suggested” option that would add your most-used smart home devices and automations to the widget. You can also choose which ones to add, but the suggested option will streamline the process and make it easier for new Google Home users to get set up and running. Of course, this news isn’t a total surprise. Earlier this year, we talked about new homescreen widgets that had shown up in the public preview, but this feature now seems to be available for those outside the public preview, but until these features are officially released, anything or everything about them could change.
These widgets were discovered through an APK teardown, which means none of the announcements are official. Google hasn’t said anything about these new features, but their addition to the APK suggests they might not be far from finished. Whether you’re a complete newcomer to smart home tech or you’re an old hat, this news is exciting. So often, smart home devices are more trouble to set up than they’re worth. This tweak will at least make it that much easier to control the devices once you’ve added them to your home.