I tried Amazon and Google’s new smart home gadgets, ask me anything!

Hi! I’m Jennifer Pattison Tuohy (aka Jen), The Verge’s smart home reviewer. I just spent the last week in New York City checking out the new smart displays, smart speakers, smart voice assistants, and smart security cameras launched by Amazon and Google. I haven’t tested any of them yet, but I’ve had some hands-on time with the new gadgets and spoken with folks at both companies about the new features.

I’m hosting a subscriber-only AMA on the site today, Friday, October 3rd. Just ask your questions in the comments on this post, and my editor, Nathan Edwards, and I will join you here at 1 PM ET to answer as many as we can.

To catch you up: on Tuesday, Amazon launched new Echo Show smart displays and Echo smart speakers that come with its new AI-powered Alexa Plus voice assistant, which is more conversational, smarter, and (mostly) better able to manage your smart home.

The company also revealed a bunch of new Ring smart security cameras, including a 4K-capable video doorbell, plus a new AI-powered feature that uses Ring cameras to help find missing dogs.

Then, on Wednesday, Google announced a huge overhaul of its smart home efforts. The headline is that it’s finally bringing its Gemini AI fully into Google Home with Gemini for Home, a new, smarter LLM-powered voice assistant for Google Home speakers that replaces Google Assistant.

Google launched new Gemini-capable Nest security cameras and a new video doorbell, plus a line of low-cost cameras in partnership with Walmart. It also announced a new Google Home smart speaker, which is coming next year.

This new breed of smarter AI is finally coming to the smart home. I know you have questions, and I hope I have the answers!