Google Home MCP vs Home Assistant MCP vs Gemini for Home
The short answer
| Google Home MCP | Home Assistant MCP Server | Gemini for Home | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Cloud MCP server for the Google Home ecosystem | Local MCP server integration built into Home Assistant | Google’s built-in assistant for the Home app and Nest speakers |
| Status | Early access from September 16, 2026, US/English | Shipping since Home Assistant 2025.2 (February 2025) | Generally available; replaced Google Assistant on Nest speakers |
| Cost | Requires Google Home Premium Advanced: $20/month or $200/year | Free, open source (optional Nabu Casa cloud for remote access) | Included; some features tied to Google Home Premium tiers |
| Devices | Nest, Works with Google Home, Matter | Thousands of integrations across vendors, incl. Google Nest via SDM and Matter | Google Home ecosystem |
| Agents it serves | Any MCP client: Claude, ChatGPT, OpenClaw, Hermes, Antigravity | Any MCP client that speaks Streamable HTTP or SSE (Claude Desktop, OpenClaw, Cursor, custom agents) | Gemini only |
| Exposes | Rooms/devices, live state, control actions, event history, camera summaries | Entities you expose via Assist; state, services, automations | Voice/text commands, routines, camera Q&A |
| Hard limits | Rate limits; no door unlocking; familiar-face consent gate | None imposed — you scope what’s exposed | Google’s assistant policies |
| Setup effort | Google Cloud project, OAuth consent screen, client ID, publish app | Add integration in Settings → Devices & services; paste URL into agent | Sign in to Home app |
| Data location | Google cloud → your agent → model vendor | Your hub (LAN) → your agent → model vendor | Google cloud |
Bottom line for September 2026: Home MCP is the easiest path for Nest/Matter households already on Premium Advanced; Home Assistant MCP is the free, local, vendor-agnostic path; Gemini for Home is the in-room voice layer you keep regardless.
Google Home MCP: what you get for $20/month
Google opened early access to Home MCP on September 16, 2026. The server at https://home.googleapis.com/mcp (OAuth scope home.platform.v2) offers four capability groups: entity enumeration (rooms and devices), real-time state monitoring, device control (parameterised actions) and historical analysis (past states and chronological event logs). Google’s launch examples include a cross-camera summary of what the kids did after school, counting laundry loads from device-state history, and having the agent send an audio message over a Nest speaker when a background task finishes.
Two things make it distinct from anything Home Assistant offers: camera event summaries and video-history search are first-class tools, because they are Premium Advanced features Google already computes in the cloud; and Google enforces a platform-level safety policy — rate limits, a ban on unlocking doors, and a separate manager-level consent for familiar-face data.
The costs: a Google Home Premium Advanced subscription ($20/month or $200/year; the $10 Standard tier does not qualify), a Google Cloud project with the Home API enabled, an OAuth consent screen and web-application client ID, and the patience to publish the app. Google provides step-by-step guides for Antigravity, Claude Cowork and OpenClaw. Availability is US-only in English for now; Google declined to say when other tiers or countries follow.
Home Assistant MCP Server: free, local, and yours to scope
Home Assistant added the Model Context Protocol Server integration in release 2025.2 (February 2025), contributed by Allen Porter. It exposes Home Assistant’s Assist API — the same tool surface its own voice assistant uses — over Streamable HTTP (originally SSE), so any MCP client can list and control the entities you have chosen to expose. As of 2026 the integration is used by roughly 4% of active installations, per Home Assistant’s own analytics.
What it does better than Google’s server:
- Vendor-agnostic. Home Assistant integrates thousands of device families — Zigbee, Z-Wave, Matter, Philips Hue, Shelly, Tesla, and Google Nest itself via the Smart Device Management API. One MCP endpoint covers all of them.
- Local by default. State never leaves your network unless you enable remote access; the only data that travels is what the agent sends to its model.
- No fee. The integration is free; Nabu Casa’s Home Assistant Cloud ($6.50/month) is optional for remote access and voice.
- No imposed blacklist. You decide whether locks, garage doors or alarm panels are exposed. That is more flexible and more dangerous — the Verge’s own test of Claude on Home Assistant showed it handling troubleshooting, automations and dashboards well, but nothing in the protocol stops a badly prompted agent from calling a lock service you exposed.
What it lacks: Google’s camera intelligence. Home Assistant can show camera streams and fire motion events, but it does not produce the descriptive event summaries or searchable video history that Home MCP surfaces from Premium Advanced.
Gemini for Home: the assistant, not the API
Gemini for Home is what replaced Google Assistant on Nest speakers and in the Google Home app. It is the interface you speak to in the kitchen; it is not an MCP client and it does not let Claude or ChatGPT in. Google was explicit on September 16 that Home MCP “doesn’t replace” Gemini for Home — it adds another layer so third-party agents can interact directly with devices through their own interfaces.
In practice most households will run both: Gemini for Home for hands-free commands and routines, and an MCP-connected agent for reasoning across history (“how often did the back door open after midnight this month?”), building dashboards, or driving multi-step tasks.
Decision guide
- All-Nest home, already paying $20/month, want Claude/ChatGPT to see camera summaries → Google Home MCP.
- Mixed-vendor home, comfortable running a hub, want zero monthly cost and local control → Home Assistant MCP.
- Want both cloud camera intelligence and local control → Run Home Assistant with the Nest integration for device control, and add Home MCP to the same agent for camera summaries; MCP clients can hold several servers at once.
- Just want to talk to the house → Gemini for Home; no MCP needed.
Whichever you pick, start the agent in read-only or approval mode. Google’s warning that a connected agent “can result in unexpected or even undesired behavior” applies equally to Home Assistant — the difference is only who wrote the guardrails.