October’s visual revamp of the Google Home companion app did nothing to tame the complicated assortment of Assistant device preferences. However, one tweak rolled out this past week tries to clarify how personalization and notification settings — particularly for the Nest Hub — works.
To get notifications on Smart Displays and speakers, “Personal results” have to be enabled. This setting lets Assistant show your photos, email, calendar, contacts, reminders, and YouTube recommendations, as well as make verbal payments. On devices with screens, those items can also appear on the homescreen as cards.
The Google Home app has a new “Recognition & Personalization” menu located in Device settings. It’s available on both a Nest Hub (firmware 1.44) and Home Mini (firmware 1.42) that we checked this evening. These new Nest Hub personalization and notification settings also require the latest Google Home app (2.15 or 2.16+), and are currently only on Android.
