Automate home devices and take care of everyday tasks based on your location with Home & Away Routines in the Google Home app or with Google Home for web. For example, you can set up an Away Routine so that your lights turn off automatically after you leave home. If you use Nest devices and services, this feature is only available if you use them with a Google Account. If you have an existing Nest Account and wish to use this feature, it's recommended that you migrate to a Google Account.
Control devices in your home with Home & Away Routines
Create Routines in the Home app or as a scripted automation in Google Home for web that can use presence sensing to automatically adjust your home devices when someone comes home and when everyone's away.
Presence in the home is determined using input from your phone's location (if you opt in) and sensors in your smart devices, so you don't have to manually turn your devices on and off or rely on a fixed schedule. You can decide which devices, including your phone, will determine presence.
How Home & Away Routines can start
Automatically, with presence sensing
Home & Away Routines can use presence sensing to determine when to start. You can choose which devices, if any, will help determine if someone is home or everyone's away:
- Device sensors: The following devices have sensors that can help determine if someone is present in the home:
- Nest thermostats
- Nest Protect (Wired)
- Nest × Yale Lock
- Google Home
- Google Home Mini
- Google Nest Mini
- Google Home Max
- Google Nest Hub
- Google Nest Hub Max
- Google Nest Hub (2nd gen)
- Google Nest Audio
- Google Nest Wifi point
Learn how each device helps sense presence.
- Phone location: With the Home app, your phone can use a combination of GPS, cellular, and Wi-Fi signals to help sense if you've left or returned home. The Away Routine starts after the last home member’s phone leaves home. The Home Routine starts when the first home member’s phone returns.
- This feature works best when everyone in the home shares their phone location. Otherwise, the Home & Away Routine might not start when someone who isn't sharing their phone location arrives or leaves.
- If you also use device sensors for presence sensing, their input may affect when your home switches to Home & Away. For example, if your thermostat senses motion around the time people leave, this input may delay the switch to Away to help make sure no one is still home.
- We've implemented this feature with your privacy in mind. The Home app doesn't continually record your phone's exact location like a GPS navigation app for driving. The app only needs to know 2 things: whether you've left or come back. Learn more about presence sensing for Home & Away Routines.
With the Home app
You can also start a Home & Away Routine with the Home app:
- Open the Google Home app
.
- Tap your home name at the top of the screen. If you can't find your home, tap Favorites
.
- Select either Home
or Away
to change your home's state. This will start Routines based on presence sensing.
.
.With a voice command (US English only)
You can start a Home & Away Routine with a voice command to Google Assistant. Note: If you've set up Home & Away Routines with a device that detects presence using voice control, then any voice command may start the Home Routine.
Important:
- You can't use a voice command to start a Routine that adjusts a Nest camera or doorbell.
- When you start a Routine with a voice command, it doesn't change the armed or disarmed state of the Nest Guard.
These are safety precautions to help prevent an unauthorized person from adjusting these devices with their voice.
Voice commands
- To start the Home Routine, say "Hey Google, someone's home."
- To start the Away Routine, say "Hey Google, everyone's away" or "Hey Google, everyone's leaving."
Note: Home & Away Routines are different from the "I'm home" and "Leaving home" ready-made personal Routines, which can't use presence sensing to determine when to start.
How Home & Away Routines can help
Save energy
Home & Away Routines can help you save energy on the smart devices they control.
- Nest thermostats: The Away Routine can adjust the thermostat to energy-saving temperatures when everyone leaves home. The Home Routine restores more comfortable temperatures when the first person returns.
- Smart plugs, switches and lights: The Away Routine can automatically turn off these devices when the last person leaves home.
Make your connected home even more convenient
When you set up presence sensing with your Home & Away Routines, they start automatically when it's convenient for you:
- Home & Away Routines can automatically turn on or off your smart plugs and switches, even if you forget.
- Home & Away Routines can adjust your Nest thermostats to the right temperatures when the last person leaves and when the first person returns. You don't need a fixed schedule.
- With presence determined by phone location, Home & Away Routines can automatically turn on/off your Nest cameras and doorbells.
Set up Home & Away Routines
Set up Home & Away Routines with the Home app. To use Home & Away Routines, Nest app users will need to migrate their Nest Account to a Google Account.
- Open the Google Home app
- Tap Automations
.
- Under Household Routines, tap Home
- Set up your Home and Away Routines by selecting the devices and settings you want to adjust when someone comes home or when everyone is away.
- (Optional) Set up your phone's location to be used for presence sensing. To do this, you'll need to enter your home address and confirm it by placing a pin on a map.
- (Optional) Select any other devices you want to use to determine if someone's home.
Home & Away Routines for Nest app users
You'll need to use the Home app to set up Home & Away Routines.
- Migrate your Nest Account to a Google Account, if you haven't already done so.
- Set up your smart devices in the Home app, if needed.
- Follow the steps in the Home app to set up a Home & Away Routine.
Note: If you use both the Nest app and the Home app, Home & Away Routines will work seamlessly with the Nest App's Home/Away Assist. In the Home App, "Home & Away Routines" is the new name for "Home & Away," and "presence sensing" is the new name for "Home/Away Assist," but they work the same way.
Differences between Home/Away Assist and Home & Away Routines
Home/Away Assist is a Nest app feature that can automatically change your Nest devices' behavior. The Home app's Home & Away Routines work similarly, with some improvements.
Home/Away Assist is available to you if you have a non-migrated Nest Account, as well as if you migrate to a Google Account and use your Google Account with your Nest devices and services.
Note: Home & Away Routines is not available on the Nest app. It's only available on the Home app for people who use Nest devices and services with a Google Account.
- The Home app and Nest app work well together. You can use either app, or both.
- No matter which app you use, the home is always in either Home or Away. If you switch your home using one app, that change will show up immediately in the other app.
- Your phone can only use geofence from one app at a time. When you enable geofence in one app, it will be automatically disabled in the other app.
- Some settings are specific to each app. Check the table below for more details:
| Home/Away Assist | Home & Away Routines | |
| Requires Nest app |  |
|
| Requires Home app | |
|
|
Requires migration to Google Account (if you started using the Nest app before August 19, 2019) |
|
|
| Can adjust Nest thermostats, cameras, and doorbells | |
|
| Can adjust Nest × Yale Lock | |
|
| Can adjust smart lights, plugs and switches | |
|
| Can use info from Nest sensors to determine presence | |
|
| Can use info from Google Nest speakers and displays to determine presence | |
|
|
Can use phone location to determine presence |
via Nest app |
via Home app |
| Can use voice command to switch between Home and Away (US English only) |
Privacy and transparency
We take your privacy seriously. Your phone location information will be used for the purposes for which you give Google permission. You can turn it off anytime.
Google's commitment to privacy in the home guides how to uphold the commitment to respect your privacy in the home. Collection of your phone's location data is off by default, and you must expressly choose to turn it on after reviewing relevant information about what data is collected, how it's used, and controls available to you.
Learn how presence sensing works and how to check and delete your presence history data.
For further details about how Google handles your data when you use Google Nest devices and services, refer to Google's privacy policy and the Google Nest Privacy Help Center page.