A Google Home AI system has been found to misidentify events in smart home camera footage. When using the "Gemini for Home" feature, a user reported that their AI assistant had labeled a video of their dog as "a deer briefly entering the family room." The AI's inability to accurately recognize objects and events in videos raises questions about its reliability.
Google says it doesn't send all of your video to Gemini. That would be a huge waste of compute cycles, so Gemini only sees (and summarizes) event clips. Those summaries are then distilled at the end of the day to create the Daily Brief, which usually results in a rather boring list of people entering and leaving rooms, dropping off packages, and so on.
The system is not multimodal—it only processes visual elements of videos and does not integrate audio from your recordings. So unusual noises or conversations captured by your cameras will not be searchable or reflected in AI summaries. This may be intentional to ensure your conversations are not regurgitated by an AI.
Despite its intention to improve Gemini for Home, Google is releasing a product that just doesn’t work very well out of the box, and it misbehaves in ways that are genuinely off-putting. The system can sometimes make inferential mistakes, which leads to these misidentifications, such as confusing your dog with a cat or deer.
At launch, it’s hard to justify paying for the $20 Advanced Gemini subscription. If you’re already paying because you want the 60-day event history, you’re stuck with the AI notifications. The system can also produce mostly accurate, but sometimes unhelpful, notifications.
Google says it doesn't send all of your video to Gemini. That would be a huge waste of compute cycles, so Gemini only sees (and summarizes) event clips. Those summaries are then distilled at the end of the day to create the Daily Brief, which usually results in a rather boring list of people entering and leaving rooms, dropping off packages, and so on.
The system is not multimodal—it only processes visual elements of videos and does not integrate audio from your recordings. So unusual noises or conversations captured by your cameras will not be searchable or reflected in AI summaries. This may be intentional to ensure your conversations are not regurgitated by an AI.
Despite its intention to improve Gemini for Home, Google is releasing a product that just doesn’t work very well out of the box, and it misbehaves in ways that are genuinely off-putting. The system can sometimes make inferential mistakes, which leads to these misidentifications, such as confusing your dog with a cat or deer.
At launch, it’s hard to justify paying for the $20 Advanced Gemini subscription. If you’re already paying because you want the 60-day event history, you’re stuck with the AI notifications. The system can also produce mostly accurate, but sometimes unhelpful, notifications.
! I was really looking forward to using their Gemini for Home feature, but now that it's out, I'm super disappointed 
. This AI thingy can't even recognize my dog from a deer? That's just lazy 
. And don't even get me started on how they summarize all those video clips... sounds like a total snooze fest 
. And what's with the lack of audio integration? No way am I paying for that Advanced Gemini subscription at launch, it's just not worth it 
. If you're gonna use this thing, you're stuck with the AI notifications, which are more often than not super inaccurate 
.
i was so excited to try out the new gemini feature on my smart home camera, but it's just not working as expected 
i mean, who wants their dog mistaken for a deer? 
that's not what i want to see in my daily brief! 
and now you're telling me i have to pay extra for the advanced subscription just to get something that's supposed to make my life easier? 
it feels like google is more interested in making money than actually making their product better 
. And what's with the AI not being able to distinguish between a dog and a deer? That's just lazy 
.
. A deer in the family room? Are you kidding me? My dog is not a deer, dude! And what's up with the lack of multimodal processing? I want to be able to search my audio recordings too, not just rely on visual clues. This whole thing feels like a bunch of half-baked features that Google wants us to pay for... $20 for Advanced Gemini? No thanks 
. It's all just a bunch of hype if it doesn't work as promised.
Google's whole "Gemini for Home" thing is like a metaphor for our own lives, you know? We're always trying to make sense of the world around us, and we rely on AI systems to help us do that. But what happens when those systems fail us? Like, literally fail us? 
.
. I mean, who wants to spend $20 a month for something that can't even recognize their own dog? 
Not me, that's for sure.
I'm just waiting for it to start giving me ridiculous summaries and making me wonder if I've lost my mind.
.
. Like this Google Home AI system, it's supposed to be all helpful and stuff but then it goes and misidentifies what's happening in our own homes 
I mean, if you want to pay extra for a better experience, fine 
but don't expect me to shell out cash for a product that's still got major kinks to work out 
. I set up my smart home cameras and was looking forward to getting those daily summaries from Google's Gemini AI system... only to find out it kept misidentifying things! Like, who wants their dog to be labeled as a deer? 
. And yeah, $20 for Advanced Gemini? No thanks 
.
and what's up with the audio not being integrated? 
that's like, half the info... also, have u seen the google assistant's error rate on video recognition? 
.