Google made sure you’d endure fewer taps with a much-needed overhaul to its Home app, including an easier way for you to bookmark many of the best smart home devices you frequently use at home. The revamp was rolled out last November to those who joined the public preview, and one of its highlight features was the new Favorites panel, where the devices and automations that matter most show up first when you open the app. The goal was to help you personalize your smart home controls, but there’s no way to organize the devices in this section by importance. That’s changing for some lucky beta testers, as Google is rolling out the ability to reorder devices in the Favorites tab.
Those who are already in the public preview can pin their favorite devices. For example, you could put your security cameras front and center for faster access to the live feed without having to make additional taps. If you want to add another device to the roster, there is an “Add” button at the bottom of the device list. According to a screenshot posted by a Redditor, that button is gone in the latest Google Home beta (version 2.67.x). Instead, it’s replaced by something more powerful.
As shown by the image above, there are two new buttons in lieu of the former capability: “Reorder” and “Edit.” The first button does exactly what it says on the tin, allowing you to change the order of devices in the Favorites tab. Meanwhile, the Edit button is for cleaning up the home screen if a device no longer needs to stay there.
There’s a catch, though: the new buttons are only available to those who gained access to the new Google Home design through a “different dogfood program,” according to 9to5Google. Dogfood builds are usually only available to Googlers, though sometimes they leak out. This still means that if you’ve joined the public preview by opting in through the app’s Settings menu, you’re out of luck for the time being.
Given that Google previously promised to add this option to the Home app before it is widely released, we can count on the “Reorder” button making its way to the regular public preview testers in no time. That said, it might be a while before we can tell how many further tweaks we can expect.
