Smart Displays — Tri Nguyen

The Problem

A pandemic made a nice-to-have urgent

Smart displays were built for glanceable information, not sustained video calls. When COVID-era work-from-home made video calling a daily necessity, Nest devices needed to support real meeting tools like Zoom — fast — without becoming a second, worse video-calling app bolted onto the side of Assistant.

My Role

Leading the Assistant + app integration

I led several key Assistant and third-party app integrations to bring video calling to smart displays during the pandemic, building a reusable video-calling framework with Zoom as its first and highest-profile instance.

Video Calling Framework on Smart Displays: Assistant and app integrations for pandemic-era video calling

Original animated video-calling experience on Nest Hub

The video-calling framework connecting Assistant with app integrations such as Zoom.

Key Decisions

One "Communicate" pattern, not a bolted-on app

Broadcast, Household Contacts, and Zoom all live under one unified "Communicate" tab pattern, so video calling feels native to Assistant rather than a separate app experience.
Face Match personalization drives a proactive meeting card — join your next meeting with one tap or a single voice command, without searching for it.
Content-promotion cards on the home screen teach people new voice queries ("Join a Zoom meeting") the same way they'd notice a weather or commute card.

Proactive Moments: Face Match personalization and a calendar pattern for joining the next meeting

Original animated proactive meeting-card interaction

Original animated next-meeting experience with voice

Face Match personalization surfaces the next meeting for joining through touch or voice.

Content promotion card for calling on displays, teaching discoverability of new voice queries

Content-promotion cards teaching new voice queries alongside weather and commute — discoverability without a tutorial.

Impact

Video calling delivered for the home

The work delivered Zoom on Nest smart displays through collaboration across Zoom, Nest, Assistant, and engineering teams. The integration brought meeting interactions into the device’s voice-and-touch experience.