After you create a home to manage your devices, share control of your home and devices with family and housemates.
Public Preview participants can now select different access and permission levels to share their homes and devices. You can add someone as an Admin to help you manage your home. Or, add them as a Member to let them access only device controls and, if desired, settings and home activity.
What people of different access levels can do
When adding a person to the home, their access levels can be set based on the permissions you want to give them.
- For trusted partners or people who co-manage the home with you, give Admin access.
- If you want someone to have limited permission to control devices and change settings, or check activity data (such as camera history), add them as a Member and customize whether they have Settings or Activity access.
Permission |
Access Level |
|
---|---|---|
Admin |
Member |
|
Add, manage, and remove people |
✔ |
|
Delete the home |
✔ |
|
Add and remove devices |
✔ |
|
Share devices and data with partner services |
✔ |
|
Link a subscription to the home |
✔ |
|
Set up or manage presence sensing for the home or shared devices |
✔ |
|
Full device control and device settings |
✔ |
Only with Settings access |
Manage home-wide settings (household automations, home address, Nest Wifi device network and features, Nest Aware and Nest Renew features) |
✔ |
Only with Settings access |
Use the home's devices in the Nest app |
✔ |
|
Check device and home-wide history (camera, lock, Nest Wifi, home presence history) |
✔ |
Only with Activity access |
Check or manage camera clip-lending for devices in the home |
✔ |
|
Deletion of any history in the home |
✔ |
|
Basic device controls (ex. live view of cameras) |
✔ |
✔ |
Personal settings
|
✔ |
✔ |
Admins can access and do the following:
Full control of all people, devices, services
- Add and remove other people, including you
- Delete the home
- Add and remove devices, like speakers, displays, lights, or locks
- Share devices and data with partner services
- Access all devices and services
- Use and change all settings of the devices in the home
- Use and change all home settings
- Manage presence sensing settings on shared devices
Check activity from all devices and services
- Check activities and events from all devices and services linked to the home
- This includes video and audio data captured on cameras and other devices, and home-wide activity like presence history
- Check services and subscriptions like Nest Aware
Check and change the home address
- The address can be used for Assistant queries on your home devices, location-based features like local traffic and weather, presence-based features like automations, and Nest Aware features.
Check names, emails, and access levels of all people in the home
- Everyone can check who is an Admin or Member
Set up Assistant features like Voice Match and share linked services like YouTube
- Set up personal results, Voice and Face Match, and automatically link their media services, like YouTube, to their Assistant
- They can do this on existing and new Assistant devices, like speakers and displays, and Chromecast built-in devices in the home
Note: Only the primary user of a Pixel Tablet can set up Voice Match and personal results on Pixel Tablets.
- They can do this on existing and new Assistant devices, like speakers and displays, and Chromecast built-in devices in the home
- Services that they link to their Assistant will be available to everyone in this home
Activity |
Settings |
---|---|
Note: Device and home-wide history can be stored for up to 60 days. Thermostat history can be stored for up to 2 years.
|
|
Members can access and do the following:
Limited control of devices and services
- Can’t add, manage, or remove people
- Can’t delete the home
- Can’t add, remove, or share devices
- Can’t share devices and data with partner services
- Can’t link subscriptions to the home
- Can’t manage presence sensing settings on shared devices
- Can manage personal presence settings
- Can add and remove their own services
If an Admin grants Settings permission, Members can:
- Access all devices and services, those added later included
- Use and change settings of the devices in the home
- Use and change home settings
Check activity from devices and services
Note: Anyone with Admin access can turn on or off Activity permission for Members
- If an Admin grants Activity permission, Members can:
- Check activities and events from all devices and services linked to the home (services include subscriptions like Nest Aware)
- Check video and audio data captured on cameras and other devices, and home-wide activity like presence history
Check, and if allowed, change the home address
- The address can be used for Assistant queries on your home devices, location-based features like local traffic and weather, presence-based features like automations, and Nest Aware features.
Check names, emails, and access levels of all people in the home
- Everyone can check who is an Admin or Member
Set up Assistant features like Voice Match and share linked services like YouTube
- Set up personal results, Voice and Face Match, and automatically link their media services, like YouTube, to their Assistant.
- This can be done on existing and new Assistant devices, like speakers and displays, and Chromecast built-in devices in the home.
Note: Only the primary user of a Pixel Tablet can set up Voice Match and personal results on Pixel Tablets.
- This can be done on existing and new Assistant devices, like speakers and displays, and Chromecast built-in devices in the home.
- Services that they link to their Assistant will be available to everyone in this home
- For children, some Family Link supervision tools won’t work in the home. Learn how to set up parental controls on Google Assistant devices.
Accounts for children under 13 years of age (or your country’s applicable age of digital consent) will have Member access by default. Both Activity and Settings permissions are automatically off for child accounts. Only people with Parent permission in a Family Link group can invite Google Accounts for children.
Child accounts have the same permissions as an ordinary member but are not allowed to:
- Create a home in the app.
- Manage or change the following:
- Digital wellbeing (features like parental controls, filters, etc.)
- YouTube settings for Google Assistant enabled devices
- Familiar Face library
- Sleep Sensing
- Open the Google Home app .
- If you have more than one home, tap Favorites .
- At the top, select the home you want to edit.
- Tap Settings Household & access Add Home member.
- Enter the name or email address of the person you want to invite to your home.
- Tap Next choose what access level you want to give between Admin or Member.
- If you tap Admin tap Invite to send the invitation.
- If you tap Member you can toggle on Activity or Settings permissions tap Next tap Invite to send the invitation.
- If your Google Family Group isn’t full and the person you’re inviting isn’t already in one, you should get the option to invite them to your Family Group.
- To invite them, tap Invite.
- To skip this step, tap No thanks.
The person you invite should receive an email with instructions.
Note:
- You can have up to 6 people in a Google Family Group.
- If the person you want to invite has already requested to join your home, instead of sending a new invitation, you need to accept that request.
- You can’t invite a Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) account user.
- Only people with Parent permission in a Family Link group can invite Google Accounts for children under 13 or the applicable age in your country or region.
When someone sends a request to join your home, you should receive an email with the invite request and a notification on your mobile device.
- Follow the link in the email you received or tap the notification on your mobile device.
- Choose an option:
- To invite a person to join your home, tap Continue.
- To reject their request, tap Decline.
- To continue, tap Next.
- Review the person’s access to your home.
- Tap Send.
- If the person you’re inviting isn’t already in your Google Family Group, you're asked if you’d like to add them. To invite them to your family group, tap Add to Family.
- To skip this step, tap No Thanks.
- You can have up to 6 people in a family group. If you already have a full family group, this option doesn't appear.
- Open the Google Home app .
- Tap Favorites Inbox .
- Tap your pending invitation.
- Review what’s shared when you join a home.
- To accept, tap Agree & join. Tap Decline to reject.
- Create a nickname for the home. This nickname only appears to you.
- The next time you connect to the home’s Wi-Fi, to finish Google Assistant setup, open the Home app which adds you to the devices connected to the same Wi-Fi.
To let the Google Assistant read or show results specific to you, choose to set up Voice Match and Face Match and choose to turn on personal results.
When you remove yourself from a home:
- You no longer have access to the home and the devices and services associated with that home.
- Other people continue to have access to the home.
- Other people should no longer have access to the devices or services you set up, including Nest thermostats, alarms, locks or cameras. If you set up a Nest Cam with your Nest Hub Max, the Nest Hub Max won’t be available.
Exceptions: The following devices should still be available to other people in the home even if you remove yourself from the home.
- Google Pixel Tablet
- Google Nest Wifi
- Google Wifi
- Assistant-enabled speakers and displays
- Chromecast
- You no longer have access to Nest Aware features, including video history.
- Other members continue to have access to Nest Aware features.
- Your Google TV account isn't removed from this home.
- You have to sign out of this account on this home’s Google TVs or in account.google.com under Security Your devices.
- If you’re the only member of the home, the home gets deleted, including home data such as video history footage and thermostat settings.
To remove yourself from a home:
- Open the Google Home app .
- If you have more than one home, tap Favorites .
- At the top, select the home you want to edit.
- Tap Settings .
- Scroll down to the bottom of the Settings tab tap Leave this home.
Alternative:- Under the home name, tap the profile icons of people in the home then select your profile icon.
- Tap Leave this home. If you’re the last Admin in the home, the option will show as Delete this home .
You can only remove other people from a home if you have Admin level permission. When you remove people from a home:
- They’re notified that they were removed from the home.
- Their account isn't linked to the devices and they won’t have access to the devices or services in the home. Learn more about FAQs on Privacy: Google Nest.
- Assistant-enabled devices such as Google Pixel Tablet and Nest speakers and displays, including those set up by the removed person, should remain in your home. These devices are no longer linked to the person you removed.
Exception: Video history footage could be deleted and Nest Hub Max might get removed.
- They no longer have access to Nest Aware features, including video history.
- Your Google TV account isn't removed from this home.
- You have to sign out of this account on this home’s Google TVs or in account.google.com under SecurityYour devices.
- If the person you remove from the home migrated their Nest Account and Nest devices like cameras and thermostats to a Google Account, those devices may be removed from the home. Data associated with their Nest devices and the home may be permanently deleted, including video history footage and thermostat settings.
To remove other people:
- Open the Google Home app .
- If you have more than one home, tap Favorites .
- At the top, select the home you want to edit.
- Tap Settings .
- Under the home name, tap the profile icons of people in the home.
- Select the profile icon of the person you want to remove.
- At the bottom, tap Remove this person .