Google Home app rolling out ‘significant upgrade’ to automation editor

Abner Li | Sep 11 2025 - 11:26 am PT

After testing in Public Preview, Google Home for Android and iOS is now getting a “significant upgrade” to the household automation editor.

The aim is to provide “more power and flexibility” when customizing household automations by providing more conditions. To access:

Open the Google Home app .
Tap Create + > New automation.
To name your Automation, tap Add name.
- Optional: To include a description for your automation, tap Add description.
Add the starters, conditions, and actions you want.
Tap Save.

An example of “more context-aware automations” is “lights automatically adjusting based on the time of day and whether someone is home.”

One-time automations are now possible instead of everything you set-up being recurring. There’s also the “option to set it to auto-delete after the automation finishes.” Other new features include:

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Start automations based on the presence (someone home, everyone away).
Send a notification to specific people or your entire household.
Set your automations to run on specific days and times or hourly, monthly, annually.

Google warns that “some capabilities are not yet available in the new editor,” with users able to return to the “Previous household editor” from the three-dot overflow menu. (You can also use the script editor.) Additionally, this update is just for Household Routines. Go to the same menu for “Previous personal editor.”

Thermostat controls, camera on/off, light effects, and light colors are “not available yet in this new editor.” Motion sensors are supported, but door, window, and contact sensors are coming in the future, along with camera motion detection.

Finally, Google is “slowly working on upgrading all automations to the new editor” if opening an existing macro opens the old interface.

For now, some automations can only be viewed and managed in the old editor. Rest assured, these will continue to function as normal while we add more capabilities to the new editor.

Google Home is rolling out the new automation editor “in phases,” with full availability “over the next few weeks.”