Google is bringing Gemini intelligence to its Home APIs, allowing smart home developers and manufacturers to tap into Gemini’s AI-powered features and potentially making your smart home a lot, well, smarter. The company announced the news in a blog post during the Google I/O developers conference this week.

Last summer, Google added several new Gemini-powered capabilities to its own platform, and now it’s extending those to others. This includes access to AI-powered camera analytics from Google Nest cameras and creating smart home routines using conversational language.

The company also announced new triggers for automations, including date and weather. Developers with access to the APIs will be able to pull these features into their apps, meaning that, as a user, you might experience them without ever opening the Google Home app.

For example, access to the AI-generated descriptions and search capabilities of Nest cameras could allow a company like ADT (which is already using Google Home APIs) to bring these features into its own home security app. So a user could ask questions like, “Did the kids leave their bikes in the driveway?” In addition to the AI features, developers can also pull livestreaming, event history, two-way talk, and camera settings for Google’s Nest cameras into their apps. 

With Gemini in Home APIs, developers can allow users to set up smart home automations and routines within their apps with conversational language; they can just say what they want to do. Gemini can also proactively suggest automations by analyzing the devices in a user’s home, according to Google.

All of this should enable companies to offer more advanced smart home control within their own apps, potentially eliminating some of the more complicated and confusing setup processes and allowing users to get more out of their smart home devices without spending lots of time manually configuring them. 

Google originally launched its Home APIs at I/O last year as a way for developers to tap into Google Home-compatible devices and automations. This includes any devices connected through Matter, which boosts the number of devices Google Home can control to over 750 million, according to the blog post. 

Some companies, including ADT, Yale, and Eve, got early access to those APIs. Another, First Alert, recently launched a smart smoke alarm that uses Home APIs to interconnect with Google’s Nest Protect smoke alarm. Google has stopped manufacturing the Protect, but as it can continue to work for at least 10 years, the First Alert device could help homeowners maintain interconnected smoke alarms as they upgrade their system.

This week, Google announced that smart lighting manufacturer Cync is integrating Google Home APIs, allowing users to control any device they have synced to Google Home in the Cync app. Smart home platform Tuya Smart is also working with the APIs, and Google said iRobot is leveraging the APIs to integrate Google’s Home and Away feature into its app. This would allow select Roomba vacuums to automatically start cleaning when you leave home — an option Roombas have had with Amazon Alexa for a while. 

Developers who use the Home APIs will be able to control those devices and experiences through the Gemini smartphone app and Nest smart speakers, with support for smart displays, Google TV, and the Pixel Tablet coming later this year, according to Google. They also teased a new Home Summary widget for the Pixel Tablet.

Most of those devices are controllable by voice, and while Google Assistant has been officially retired on smartphones in favor of Gemini, it’s still around on smart speakers and displays. However, the company has begun rolling out a “new experience” powered by Gemini to its Nest Audio and Nest Mini 1st and 2nd-gen speakers for users in its Public Preview program who have a Nest Aware subscription. It sounds like the rest of the hardware lineup won’t be far behind.

But don’t expect to see these new Gemini-powered features in loads of third-party apps soon. According to Google, the Gemini in Home APIs will be available via an early access program “to a small group of partners” later this year.