Goodbye Nest Aware, Google launches new smart home subscription

Google has pulled the plug on Nest Aware and Aware Plus, replacing them with a brand new subscription for its smart home devices.

Google is reorganizing its smart home ecosystem and stepping away from the Nest branding for certain products and services. The search giant has revived the 'Google Home' branding for its smart speakers and pulled the plug on the Nest Aware and Nest Aware Plus subscriptions.

Nest Aware subscriptions have been replaced with a new offering called Google Home Premium, available for Google's lineup of smart speakers, displays, doorbells, and security cameras. The original Nest Aware subscription was introduced almost a decade ago, and Google charged on a per-camera basis at the time.

Google reintroduced Nest Aware between 2019 and 2020 with a simplified flat-rate model that charged a single fee for all the Nest cameras a user owned and increased its price a few times over the years.

Google Home Premium starts at $10/mo (or $100/year) for the Standard plan, which unlocks Gemini Live on the latest Nest Cam devices and upcoming Google Home Speaker, Ask Home for automation help, up to 30 days of event-based video history, and intelligent camera alerts for familiar faces, garage door detection, package detection, smoke alarm, and other things.

The $20/mo (or $200/year) Advanced plan builds upon it by offering up to 60 days of event-based video history, detailed camera alerts with more context, Home Brief summaries, and searchable video history with Ask Home.

Google Home Premium should not be confused with Google AI subscriptions. In fact, if you already have a Google AI Ultra plan, you will automatically get the Advanced plan for your smart home devices. You will get the Standard plan for free with a Google AI Pro subscription, with an option to upgrade to Advanced for $10 per month.

Gemini Live, AI-powered notifications, Ask Photos, and video history search are part of the new Gemini For Home AI assistant that the search giant has launched for its smart home devices, replacing the existing Google Assistant. It's currently available through an early access program and will support all smart speakers, displays, security cameras, and doorbells that Google has launched in the last decade.