Google Home Preview Program For Testing Future Software Opens To Everyone

Google has been making run at the smart home speaker market with its Google Home device, though it has not reached parity with Amazon and its growing number Alexa-powered Echo products. Perhaps in time Google Home will become just as fleshed out and capable. In the meantime, Google Home owners can gain access to experimental features by enrolling in the speaker's Preview program.

The program is relatively new. It first showed up in an updated help page on Google's website a few weeks ago, though at the time there was no way of signing up to participate. Google must have been getting things in order at the time, because fast forward to now and everyone is invited to join the fun. If you own a Google Home device, all you have to do is open the Home app on your smartphone, navigate to Device settings, and tap the Preview Program option to opt-in and receive updates.


If you are not seeing the Preview Program option, don't fret, you are not alone. Some users report that rebooting their Google Home speaker brings the Preview Program into view. You also need to make sure you are running firmware version 93937 in order to participate in the program.

That is step one. Step two is to wait—there does not appear to be any new updates available to Preview Program members at this time. We suspect that will change soon as Google looks to roll out and test new features. Hopefully the ability to set a reminder will be among them.

Google did update Google Home with hands-free calling in the US a few months ago. Not long before that, the smart speaker gained multi-user support with personalized voice recognition.

Google Home is currently available for $109, down from its regular selling price of $129.