Nest is ready to take over your smart home now

When Google first launched its assistant-enabled Google Home, many onlookers wondered why Nest, the Alphabet-owned smart home gadget maker, wasn't more closely involved with the speaker.

From the outside, it appeared to some as though Nest was a mere afterthought in what would be Google's most important product for the home. Now we can safely put those fears to rest.

Not only is Nest now officially back together with Google, the company is ready to make good on its promises of Google Assistant-fueled smart home future.

On Wednesday, the company's two latest products go on sale: the $229 Nest Hello video doorbell and the $249 Nest Yale smart lock. The company is also opening up pre-orders for a new $39 temperature sensor for Nest thermostats.

Nest Hello is Google's answer to the Ring (which was recently acquired by Amazon for more than $1 billion). The core features are mostly the same — it allows you to remotely check who is outside your door at any given moment, and comes equipped with a camera and speaker.

Google's video doorbell will also let you record canned responses for when you can't get to the app and send you alerts when it detects people outside your door.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

The Nest Yale lock is a Wi-Fi-equipped lock that doesn't require a key to use. Instead, you enter a code to unlock the door and homeowners can control who has access from an app on their phone.

Finally, Google is taking pre-orders for a new temperature sensor for Nest thermostats. The $39 gadget is meant to be a solution for households where not every room stays at a consistent temperature, which can be problematic if, say, your Nest is in one of the warmer rooms of the house.

Now, you can place a sensor in a room separate from the thermostat and let the Nest adjust based on the temperature in that room.

But perhaps most compelling is that all of Nest's products are now closely integrated into Google Assistant. If you have a Google Home speaker, you can control Nest's full lineup (including the previously announced outdoor security cameras and alarm system) by talking to the Google Assistant.

And for Nest, which now finds itself with an even more massive competitor in Amazon, that might make all the difference. Even if you only own one or two Nest products, the promise that they can be part of a bigger Google Assistant-enabled smart home (and one that you know will be free of the headaches that come with integrating a bunch of third-party gadgets into one house), only makes Google's vision for the smart home that much more appealing.