Decade-old Nest Protect smoke detector finally lands on Google’s Home app

For years, owners of Google’s Nest Protect smoke detector have been asking when their devices would make the leap from the older Nest app to Google Home, and the answer was always the same: one day, maybe. 

Well, it looks like that day has finally arrived. 

Google is rolling out public preview support on the Google Home app for smoke and carbon dioxide detectors—and yes, that support includes the 10-year-old Nest Protect, as 9to5Google reports. 

Once Nest Protect is on the Google Home app (you’ll need to be in the public preview program to get started, and the support is Android-only for now), you’ll be able to do things like receive smoke and carbon monoxide alerts, get critical device updates (such as battery life alerts), tinker with schedules and settings, and more. 

In addition to smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, the Google Home app is also getting support for Matter smart locks, 9to5Google adds. The Matter smart lock support is big news in and of itself, with the category seeing several notable new entries at CES in Las Vegas last week. 

But for Nest Protect users—and yes, there are still plenty of them out there—word that the devices are finally coming to the Google Home app has been a long time coming. Indeed, Google first promised to bring Nest Protect to the Home app back in 2020. 

Since the second-generation device went on sale 10 years ago (the original debuted a little earlier in 2013), the Nest Protect has been relegated to the old Nest app, where the very first Nest cams were also managed. 

Gradually, the Google Home app (which was actually called “Google Cast” until a 2016 rebranding) became the control center for Google’s newer Nest speakers, cameras and other smart devices, meaning Nest users with both older and newer devices often found themselves having to use two apps to control their devices. 

That started to change in 2023, when Google began gradually moving its original Nest cameras to the Google Home app. The final legacy Nest cams finally made the leap to Google Home last November. 

But up until now, Nest Protect has remained stuck on the Nest app, with Google occasionally chiming in that it was still “exploring” how to bring the device over to the Google Home app. 

Of course, it’s kind of amazing that we’re still talking about Nest Protect at all, given that its second incarnation is a decade old–and in fact, it’s the oldest Nest product still available on the Google store.

Amazon, for example, has killed off smart gadgets that were half that age.