The Google Home app was recently redesigned, making it easier to control your smart home products from the app or on your smart display. But unfortunately, you couldn’t change the colors of your smart lights. All you could do was change the brightness or toggle them on or off. That changes in version 2.9 that’s rolling out today.
With the latest version of the Google Home app, users are going to be able to also control the color of their lights from within the app. This doesn’t just apply to those that are multi-colored either. If you own tunable lights, you can also adjust the color of white that they are.
This is done by simply tapping on the bulb, and at the bottom of the screen you’ll see a new button for “colors”. That will open up a new overlay that shows the colors that are available. Unfortunately, there’s no color wheel available, just a handful of colors you can select from. However, with multi-colored lights like LIFX or Philips Hue, you will get a lot more options than just the nine or so that you get with a tunable bulb.
For those that control all of their smart home products from the Google Home app, this is actually a pretty big deal, and definitely a nice thing to see. Instead of having to use a different app for each product that’s in your home, Google Home will allow you to control it all from within the app. So you aren’t forced to only control them with your voice, but you can also do it like you would normally do it through the Philips Hue app.
In recent months, Google has been making some changes to the Google Home app and Google Assistant, in an effort to make smart home control even easier for everyone. Since a lot of people do have different products for different things like Philips Hue for their lights, Wemo for their smart plugs, etc., it means that they are using different apps for each thing. Google has sought to bring that altogether into one app. This was possible before, but you had to use your voice. Something like “OK Google, turn off the lights” etc. Now, you can just browse through the app and find your lights to adjust them. Seeing as not everyone is going to want to use their voice all the time to control their home. It gives users a nice choice.
This is going to work for all of the smart lights that are currently compatible with the Google Assistant and Google Home. From LIFX to Philips Hue, to GE and even cheaper brands like eufy, and everything in between.
The latest version of the Google Home app, version 2.9 is rolling out now. It actually started rolling out a few days ago, so most people should have it already, or it should be available in the Google Play Store for you to download. So you won’t need to worry about sideloading it.