Face Match works alongside Voice Match to provide a proactive experience that's tailored to each user. When Nest Hub Max recognises your face, it can proactively show you your personalised content, like upcoming calendar events. When you approach Nest Hub Max for the first time each day, you can also choose to view things like the weather, suggestions of music to listen to and top news headlines of the day.
Important: Face Match is not a security feature. It's used to make your experience with your Nest Hub Max more enjoyable, convenient and specific to you. Your device may not be able to tell the difference between you and, for example, a photograph of your face. If another member of your household looks very similar to you, the device may identify them as you.
Set up Face Match
If you've already set up Voice Match on a Face Match capable display, follow these steps:
- Make sure that your mobile device or tablet is linked to the same account as your display.
- Open the Google Home app
.
- Tap Home
Settings
.
- Under 'Features', tap Google Assistant
Face Match.
- Follow the in-app steps.
- If you want to automatically add Face Match to new devices in the same home, turn on 'Devices that you add later'.
- If you want to simply look at your display to talk to Google, turn on 'Look and Talk'.
- These steps won't work with a Google Workspace account. Learn how to use a Google Workspace account on a device.
- Google Pixel Tablet doesn't support Face Match setup and management. If you set up Nest Hub Max with your Google Pixel Tablet, you need to use the Google Home app on another compatible mobile device to set up Face Match and manage your settings.
Make sure that your device can recognise you
Face Match works best when the camera built into your Nest Hub Max has a clear view of your face. The best way to do this is to minimise backlighting, and make sure that your face is properly lit. If the lighting behind you is too bright, it can wash out the camera or cast a dark shadow on your face. This is especially true if the light shines directly into the camera. If there's too much backlighting or not enough light on your face, your facial features may not be detected.
Additional Face Match setup tips
- When you take pictures during setup, make sure that the lighting behind you is equal to or darker than the lighting in front of you so that there are no shadows on your face. Make sure that any bright lights or sunlight aren't shining directly into the camera.
- When you capture images of your face during setup, don't move too fast.
- Similarly, when you place your Nest Hub Max, make sure that no bright lights are shining directly into the camera, and that the lighting behind you is darker or equal to the light in front of you.
Turn off Face Match
Turn off Face Match for a home in the Google Home app
- Make sure that your mobile device or tablet is linked to the same account as your Google Nest display.
- Open the Google Home app
- Tap Home
- Tap Remove Face Match from the home and follow the steps.
Note: When you disable Face Match, your face model will be deleted from your device, but it will not delete the enrolment images used to create your face model. To delete Face Match enrolment images, visit https://myactivity.google.com/.
Turn off Face Match for a display
- Make sure that your mobile device or tablet is linked to the same account as your Google Nest display.
- Open the Google Home app
- Tap Home
- Untick the box next to the device that you want to turn off Face Match for.
Note:
- When you turn off Face Match for a device, your face model will be removed from that device. You can also select Remove Face Match from this home, which will remove your face model from all the devices in your home. In both cases, it will not remove the enrolment images used to create your face model. To remove Face Match enrolment images, visit g.co/assistant/match.
- When you disable camera sensing, Face Match will be turned off until camera sensing is re-enabled. Your face model is not removed from your Hub Max when sensing is disabled.
- You can also turn off Face Match at any time from the Google app or Assistant app settings page.
- When you turn off Voice Match, it will also opt you out of Face Match and remove your face model from your device.
Voice Match and Face Match
Voice Match needs to be turned on to use Face Match. Voice Match allows Google Assistant to recognise you when you ask questions. Face Match further enhances your experience by allowing Google Assistant to proactively identify you and show you personal and helpful content without you having to ask first.
For example, with Voice Match, you can ask about your upcoming calendar events. Face Match may proactively show them to you when you walk by the display.
Face Match requires Voice Match to provide the best possible experience. For example, if two enrolled Face Match users stand in front of the Nest Hub Max and one of them asks Assistant a question, it's Voice Match that identifies which of the two users was speaking. By knowing which user issued the request, Google Assistant knows which of the two users' personalised content should be displayed on the device.
Important: Voice Match needs to be enabled in order for Face Match to work. When you turn off Voice Match for your Nest Hub Max, it will also permanently turn off Face Match for the same device. Google Assistant will no longer be able to recognise your voice or give you personal results on that device, although you can turn on personal results again. When you turn off Voice Match for the home with your Nest Hub Max, it will also permanently turn off Face Match for your Nest Hub Max. To access or remove the audio clips or photos that you took during Voice Match and Face Match setup, go to g.co/assistant/match.
To understand how your data is handled when you use Face Match on your Nest Hub Max, refer to the Privacy Help Centre FAQs page for our connected home devices and services. Also, learn about our commitment to privacy in the home.