Smart home panel is my favorite Google feature under the radar

Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
It’s been a few years since Google took its first steps into what has become its most ubiquitous and consistent feature across multiple devices: smart home panels. What started as a simple control under the power button on phones running a native version of Android 11 has evolved into a powerful Android 15 feature that brings Google Home, Pixel and non-Pixel phones, dock mode to Pixel tablets, Wear OS smartwatches, and Google TV streaming.
Really? Yes. It’s almost an unbelievable miracle and feat to see so many Google teams working together to deliver a feature across devices and ecosystems, but they’ve done it, so let me introduce you to what I love most about this smart phone What a home panel is and how I use it in my daily life.
Do you use Google’s smart home panel?
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A list of favorites – take it or leave it
When you open the Google Home app on your phone, you’ll first go to the Favorites tab. If you haven’t populated it yet, I recommend you do because this is where the smart home panel was born. tap edit In the lower left corner, select the device you need to control or monitor most, save it, then click Reorder Organize them any way you like.
Unlike the main Google Home app, the Google Home app arranges everything alphabetically by room name, which is great for you to group lights together, sort by most-used devices, or find out what’s important to you and your smart home usage. Chances of meaning in any order.
I went back and forth a lot on my personal configuration, but I found that sticking to the room order made the most sense to me. What I did do though was sort the rooms based on which ones I use the most, rather than alphabetically. I also appreciate that the Favorites tab gives me a big button at the top to control my camera, lights, and climate equipment (thermostat).
Choose your favorite smart home devices once and access them across all your phones, tablets, TVs and watches.
The real benefits come once you have your favorites in place and sorted. Yes, you can quickly see these in the Home app, but they’re the same favorites Google uses on phones, tablets, TVs, and watches to let you quickly control your smart home.
A smart home panel that rules them all
A unique yet unified experience across mobile phones
While Google’s smart home panel started out as a small perk under the power button, it’s now primarily accessible through other means on your Android phone. On many phones, when you pull down the notification shade, you can quickly set up the tile to access it from Home. But it can also be selected as a lock screen shortcut on Pixel phones or as Device control The chip on a Samsung phone.
Again, I like the fact that Google was able to convince a stubborn company like Samsung to support its own smart home ecosystem in addition to SmartThings. Even though the way to access the panel varies from brand to brand, the fact that the experience is natively integrated with every Android skin but remains the same once you actually open the panel is such a winning feature for me.
Whether I’m on the road, traveling millions of miles, lying in bed, sitting outside on my deck, or walking around my home, I just reach out to my phone and know I have near-instant control of my smart home unit. Even better, the panel works even if my phone is locked, so I don’t have to waste time unlocking it before I start vacuuming or raising the thermostat when I feel cold.
Take advantage of your Pixel Tablet’s continuous power

Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
Similar to Pixel phones, the Smart Home Dashboard can be accessed via the quick settings tile or lock screen shortcut on Pixel tablets, but it really comes into play when the tablet is docked. Continuous power means you have 24/7 access to your smart home devices to monitor their status and control them. A big monitor helps with this too, especially if you’re like me and have many devices.

Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
Initially, the panel was only accessible through the Google Home icon when the tablet was docked in digital photo frame mode, but now Google has added a dedicated family control Hub mode always simply displays smart home controls. It’s perfect if you don’t care about showing photos on your tablet, but I do, so I tied it to the “Home” shortcut on the photo frame.
Since my Pixel tablet is fixed to my office desk, I primarily use the panel to control the office lights and the shared thermostat and vacuum on the floor. Turning up the lights and activating various color scenes is very helpful when I want to take a photo of myself Android Authority article.
Scales well on both small and large displays

Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
Perhaps my favorite part of this smart home panel experience, though, is that it scales well on both the smallest and largest displays I own. On the small display of my Pixel Watch 3, the Google Home app opens directly to my favorites, so I only have to scroll through the devices I control and monitor most often, rather than all the devices in my home. For me, this makes lights, thermostats, vacuums, and air purifiers just a few scrolls away, rather than wasting time browsing apps by individual rooms and devices.

Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
Next up is the largest display in my living room, a panel with the same look, favorites, and order as my Google TV Streamer. I like that I can just click the star button on the new TV Streamer remote to open this panel and quickly check if the door is locked, dim the lights, or start watching a movie. Because yes, it supports routines and automation too!
More than a simple on/off button: controls and routines

Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
When smart home panels were first launched, they had some limited controls built into them. Now, though, almost every device type I own gives me almost complete control over it without having to dig into the Google Home app. I can change the brightness and color of the lights, change the mode and temperature of the thermostat (and see the ambient temperature and humidity), lock and unlock my door, start and stop the vacuum cleaner, change the mode and speed of the air purifier, and stop the TV What’s playing.
Even better, though, you can add your most used automations and scenes to your favorites list, and they’ll also appear in the panel. I use the Nightly Routine every night when I go to bed, and sometimes I just don’t want to trigger it by speaking loudly into the speaker, so I silently launch it from my smartwatch or phone.
The only thing that breaks my heart is that the panel doesn’t support my current security cameras (from Xiaomi and TP-Link), so I can’t watch a live stream of what’s going on in my home while I’m away. Google primarily supports Nest cameras with this feature, so I had to open separate Mi and Tapo apps to check my cameras.
Sometimes I wish I could have different favorites and sorting methods on different devices because, for example, I don’t control the same lights when I’m watching TV or using my phone, but I think this detracts from the unity of Google’s approach sex, consistency and simplicity. Eventually, I realized I didn’t have to think too much about what I could control and where – it was the same everywhere. This is what I love most about this smart home panel.
Google has a gem here; I just hope it stays that way.
Looking back now, it’s hard to remember the early days of smart home panels, when few phones had it and you had to manually select which smart home devices to display every time you switched between phones. Now, no matter where you use it, it’s nearly everywhere, very consistent, powerful, and easy to manage. I’d still like to see it on all Google TV models, and would like it to be more accessible on non-Pixel watches and tablets, but we’re on the right path now.
Ultimately, my only wish is that Google doesn’t mess this up. It will take years to get to this point; I don’t want to go back to a decentralized smart home approach. If Google and the Android teams could convince each other to work together on more projects to achieve similar consistency in our experience…then Android would be in a better position now, wouldn’t it?