Dust off your Home Mini. Google has breathed new life into the nine-year-old speaker, but there's a catch for now.

When a tech company wants you to buy something new, it usually lets the old one quietly age out. This time, Google did the opposite – it launched conversational Gemini Live even on a speaker from 2017. It sounds like an unusually decent move. And to some extent, it is a decent move.

Hardware that should have been in the drawer long ago

The new feature concerns two specific devices: the first-generation Google Home Mini, that fabric puck from October 2017, and the original Nest Hub, which was called Google Home Hub upon its release a year later. Both devices missed out on the first wave last autumn when Gemini Live arrived on Nest Mini, Nest Audio, Nest Hub, and Nest Hub Max.

It is activated with the phrase „Hey Google, let’s chat”, followed by an audio signal, and the conversational mode begins. From that moment, you can ask follow-up questions, interrupt the assistant, and diverge without repeating the trigger phrase every time. The difference from the old command-based control is fundamental – you stop dictating and start conversing. However, the feature does not yet work in Czech.

Fifteen minutes of memory

The second change concerns all devices with Gemini for Home. Conversational memory has been extended to 15 minutes, so the assistant retains the context of previous queries. Practically: you say to turn on the lights in the kitchen, and a few minutes later, “dim it to fifty percent” is enough – the system knows what you’re talking about.

It sounds like a minor detail, but this very feature has so far separated Gemini in a speaker from Gemini on a phone, where the assistant maintains context long-term.

And now for the catch

Gemini Live is locked behind a Google Home Premium subscription on all supported devices, which replaced the earlier Nest Aware. The basic tier costs 10 dollars per month or 100 dollars annually, with the higher tier at 20 dollars per month. Additionally, you must be enrolled in the Gemini for Home early access program.

Google explains this with performance – older hardware doesn’t have enough power for on-device processing, so everything runs in the cloud, and someone has to pay for that. The argument makes technical sense. At the same time, the company has never indicated whether the feature will ever become available at a free tier.

The method of announcement is also worth noting. Google recorded the changes in the Google Home app’s changelog on July 23 and did not accompany them with a blog post or press release. The deployment schedule by device was also not published.

What this means for us

Unfortunately, here comes the usual cold shower. The Czech Republic has long been absent from the Gemini for Home early access program, even though it expanded to sixteen countries in April, including Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Controlling a smart home in Czech via Gemini on a phone has been possible for some time, but that’s a different matter than a conversational assistant running directly on the speaker.

Would you pay ten dollars a month for your speaker to talk to you like a human?

Sources: Droid Life, Android Authority, AndroidPure, TechRadar