Who can use Google Home MCP and how much does it cost?

As of September 16, 2026, early access is limited to Google Home Premium Advanced subscribers in the United States, in English, rolling out over several weeks. Premium Advanced costs $20 per month or $200 per year (the Standard tier at $10/month does not qualify). There is no separate charge for MCP itself, but setup requires a Google Cloud project with the Home API enabled and an OAuth client, and your agent's own model usage is billed by its vendor. Google has not said whether other tiers or countries will follow.

Can an AI agent unlock my door through Home MCP?

No. Google says Home MCP enforces rate limits and safety protections and prohibits sensitive actions such as unlocking doors. Familiar-face data requires a separate, explicit grant from a manager of the home. Google still warns that, depending on the agent, connecting it to Home MCP 'can result in unexpected or even undesired behavior,' and points users to its developer policies and terms of service.

What is the difference between Home MCP and Home Developer MCP?

Home MCP is the consumer-facing server that lets a personal agent interact with a real home's devices and history, authenticated by user OAuth (scope home.platform.v2). Home Developer MCP, released alongside it, is a documentation server for coding tools: it grounds Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot in VS Code and Google's Antigravity suite in the Home API reference, the Matter specification and Thread/OpenThread docs, using API keys or unauthenticated trial paths rather than user OAuth.

Quick Answer

What Is Google Home MCP? AI Agents Run Your Smart Home

Q: What is Google Home MCP?

Home MCP is a Model Context Protocol server for the Google Home ecosystem that Google opened to early access on September 16, 2026. Any AI agent that can call MCP tools — Google named Google Antigravity, Claude, Hermes and OpenClaw, and TechCrunch adds ChatGPT — can connect to https://home.googleapis.com/mcp and list rooms and devices, read live device state, query historical events and camera summaries, and execute control actions such as switching lights or adjusting a Nest thermostat. It works with Google Nest hardware plus Works with Google Home and Matter devices.

Published: September 17, 2026

The short answer

Google Home MCP is an official Model Context Protocol server from Google that turns your Google Home into a set of tools any MCP-capable AI agent can call. Google opened early access on September 16, 2026 to Google Home Premium Advanced subscribers in the US ($20/month or $200/year). Once connected, Claude, ChatGPT, OpenClaw, Hermes or Google’s own Antigravity can enumerate your rooms and devices, check live state, search event history and camera summaries, and issue control commands — everything except sensitive actions like unlocking doors.

It does not replace Gemini for Home, which remains Google’s built-in assistant in the Home app and on Nest speakers. Home MCP is a second door: it hands the underlying data and control layer of your home to whichever agent you already use.

What the server exposes

Google’s MCP overview groups Home MCP’s functions into four capability areas, each with example prompts:

Capability	What it does	Example prompt
Entity enumeration	Lists structures, rooms and devices	”How many lights are in the house?”
Real-time state monitoring	Queries live device state, including connectivity	”Is the home secured right now?”
Device control	Executes parameterised actions	”Set the thermostat to 20 °C and turn off the kitchen lights”
Historical analysis	Queries past states and chronological event logs	”What happened while I was out?”

Early testers’ examples, per Google’s announcement: asking what the kids did after school and getting a cross-camera summary with the relevant clips; using device-state history to count loads of laundry in a week or how long lights were left on; having an agent send an audio message over a Google Home speaker when an asynchronous task finishes; and generating a custom smart-home dashboard in plain language.

Supported hardware is the whole ecosystem: Google Nest doorbells, cameras and thermostats, plus any Works with Google Home or Matter device such as light bulbs.

Which agents work with it

Google’s blog post names Google Antigravity, Claude, Hermes and OpenClaw as example clients, and its user guide provides step-by-step setup for Antigravity, Claude Cowork and OpenClaw. TechCrunch lists ChatGPT as well. In practice anything that can register a remote MCP server with OAuth — the same mechanism used for Google Workspace and Google Cloud MCP servers — should connect.

Setup, as of September 2026

Home MCP is not a one-tap toggle in the Home app. The user guide requires:

An active Google Home with connected devices and a Google Home Premium Advanced subscription.
A Google Cloud project with the Home API enabled.
An OAuth consent screen configured for an external audience, a web-application OAuth client ID with redirect URIs for your agent, and the app published.
Registering the server URL https://home.googleapis.com/mcp with scope home.platform.v2 in your agent, then signing in and granting permissions when the agent prompts you.

Familiar-face data has an extra gate: a manager of the structure must explicitly grant access, and the home needs at least one compatible Nest camera or doorbell with familiar face detection enabled. Google advises people who share a home to talk to the other occupants before wiring an agent in.

Safety and privacy guardrails

Google describes Home MCP as “safe and secure by design” and lists concrete limits:

Rate limits on tool calls.
No sensitive actions — the server will not let an agent unlock doors.
Existing permissions hold: an agent acts as the signed-in user, with that user’s access.
Separate consent for familiar-face recognition data.

The warning that matters is Google’s own: “depending on your agent, connecting it to Home MCP can result in unexpected or even undesired behavior.” An agent with a broad system prompt and a long tool list can misinterpret a request; keep the first weeks in read-mostly mode and review the Google Home developer policies and terms before granting control scopes.

Home Developer MCP: the companion for coders

On the same day Google introduced Home Developer MCP, a second server aimed at developers rather than households. It grounds AI coding tools in verified documentation — the full Home API reference and integration guides, the Matter specification, and OpenThread/Thread docs — and works with Google’s Antigravity CLI, Antigravity 2.0 and IDE, as well as Claude Code, Cursor and GitHub Copilot in VS Code. It authenticates with project API keys or unauthenticated trial paths, not user OAuth, because it never touches a real home.

Google’s framing: Home MCP lets personal agents interact with the smart home safely; Home Developer MCP delivers technical information directly to the tools that build integrations.

Why this matters

MCP was created by Anthropic in November 2024 and is now stewarded under the Linux Foundation’s Agentic AI Foundation; Google already exposes MCP servers for Google Cloud, its data platforms and Google Workspace. Home MCP extends that pattern to physical devices, which is the first time a major smart-home platform has offered agent access through an open protocol rather than a proprietary assistant SDK. Home Assistant, the open-source platform, has shipped an MCP server integration since early 2025; Google’s move brings the same idea to the tens of millions of Nest and Matter households — at least those paying for the top subscription tier.