A year ago, the inconsistency of the Google Home ecosystem had me seriously considering leaving the platform altogether. Google Assistant and Siri were equally as unreliable, and the advent of Matter interoperability meant I wasn’t tied down to a single smart home ecosystem anymore. The switch from Google Assistant to Gemini for Google Home gave me a glimmer of hope that I might be able to keep my Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max displays as primary smart home controllers.I’ve been using Gemini as my Google Home assistant since last October, and it made my Nest devices functional again — some as old as a decade. I’m thrilled with how my Home Hub (2018), Nest Hub Max (2019), and Nest Battery Doorbell (2021) work together with Gemini as their conductor.