Google neatens up its smart home app

Google wants to tidy up the event feed in its Home app to make it easier to see what's going on in your smart home. An update coming later this month will feature a "clutter-free layout," the search giant says, and will group related entries together to save you from having to scroll through "a list of repetitive events." The above screenshot posted by the company shows a more concise and simplified layout.

Along with this feed update, the company has officially announced a new centralized privacy section, as well as the updated controls that started appearing last week. The privacy section will launch this week and allows you to manage home settings such as presence detection and offers an easy view of your data. Meanwhile, the new smart home controls offer a simple at-a-glance view of the status of your smart home devices without requiring as many taps, similar to the controls Google included with Android 11. They will roll out "in the coming weeks," says Google.

They're welcome additions to the Google Home app, which has remained largely unchanged since its last major redesign in 2018 (barring a colour-changing light update in 2019). Unfortunately, Google's post doesn't mention whether they'll reduce the number of ads for Google services that currently plague the home feed.