How the video support from Gemini Live helped me to build plants in the desert

I saw a demo from Gemini Live's Multimodal Video Streaming and Screen Sharing Support on Google I/O 2024, and admittedly I was a skeptical project that would scale Astra on smartphones. About a year later and the Astra project is located in the hands of millions of Google Pixel 9, Samsung Galaxy S25 and Gemini Advanced Users. It is ready and it is here – but is it actually useful?

The answer is that it can be absolutely as long as its applications are personal for you. For example, the multimodal functions of Gemini live will not be a better alternative to Google Search or Circle for the search. Under certain circumstances in which it is better to show than to say, the camera support from Gemini can be useful.

After weeks of Gemini's test with video streaming, the function is an irreplaceable component of one of my non-tech hobbies: gardening. I've done it all my life, but after I had moved from the garden state into the Arizona desert, I had to learn again everything – New growth seasons, nursing techniques, problems and everything in between.

To my surprise, it was not Google or Reddit that I helped to control this climate the most. It was Gemini Live.

Gemini can probably identify plants much better than they

Use of Gemini to breed plants and diagnose problems.

(Photo credit: Brady Snyder / Android Central)

AI can be fun to play around with it, but it is only really useful if you know when to use it. In particular, Gemini's camera functions offer the most useful benefit if you have something right in front of you that you are not sure how to describe. Perhaps it is a piece of furniture in a café that you don't know the name or a monument with a faded badge. In these situations, entering a written input request in a chat bot or a search engine will not do you good.

There you would like to switch on your camera live in Gemini. It will help in many situations, including the identification of plants. I picked up a few small potted plants from Ikea and turned to Gemini live to find out what they were and how to take care of them. This is how Gemini reacted, based on pointing my camera on the system:

It looks like an aloe vera plant! Is there anything you want to know about Aloe Vera Care?
Gemini life

While all of this happens outside the device, Gemini replied the answer pretty quickly. Sure enough, it looks like an aloe vera plant. Then I recorded the AI assistant with his offer to clarify myself about care. The following said it:

Sure, aloe vera plants are easy to worry. You need bright, sunny spots and well -permeable soil. You should let the soil dry out between irrigation. During spring and summer you want to pour it every two weeks. In autumn and winter you can cut back about once a month.
Gemini life

The answers were clear and concise and they save me a lot of time to research care instructions for a system. I wasn't even sure that the name was a few minutes earlier.

It will also create care options for your plants

Use of Gemini to breed plants and diagnose problems.

(Photo credit: Brady Snyder / Android Central)

If Gemini could only identify plants by looking at them, it would be cool, but it would not be groundbreaking. The killer feature here are the care instructions that Gemini can only deliver by considering a system. To test this, I showed him a living camera feed on my basil system and asked how I should take care of it, and Gemini replied with the following:

This is a beautiful basil plant! It takes about six hours of sunlight every day, so a sunny spot is perfect. You should pour it when the upper centimeter of the floor feels dry and make sure that the pot has good drainage. Do you have a sunny place for it?
Gemini life

Then I said Gemini, I wanted to keep the basil on my balcony and it seemed to like the idea.

A balcony is a great place! Basil lives with six to eight hours of direct sunlight a day. Simply make sure that the temperature increases below 50 degrees or over 90 degrees.
Gemini life

The cool thing on the “Live” with Gemini is that you can easily ask context or follow-up questions in real time. For example, if the AI suggested to bring it into the house when the temperature drops, I could let Gemini know that it would not be a problem in my climate. It is easy to get context -specific advice when you use your camera with Gemini live.

If problems arise, Gemini Live can diagnose you

Use of Gemini to breed plants and diagnose problems.

(Photo credit: Brady Snyder / Android Central)

Gemini Live's most useful ability is to diagnose problems that you may encounter with your plants. As I already mentioned, I am new to growing plants in the desert and it is a learning curve. Since the sun is so intense and the temperature can exceed 120 degrees Fahrenheit, the climate is irreconcilable. I had to encounter problems and Gemini Live helped me navigate them.

In one case, my hydroponic jalapeño and tomato plants had difficulty. The Jalapeño leaves tanned and the tomatoes simply weren't red. It was Gemini, who indicated that the temperature of my apartment could be the problem and after turning on the heat, the tomatoes wrapped for a few days. Health problems with my plants were also identified, as explained in the following answer:

Your Jalapeño plant looks like it could have a few problems. The leaves rip and have some brown spots that can arise from overgrading or nutrient deficiency. The tomatoes also look as if they may have had a flowering rotation rot, which is caused by a calcium deficiency. Do you have a plant fertilizer on hand?
Gemini life

It is important to remember that when reading the transcript of my conversation with Gemini, all of this will be spoken to me in real time-as you would have a conversation with another person.

Use of Gemini to breed plants and diagnose problems.

(Photo credit: Brady Snyder / Android Central)

I realized that the multimodal features of Gemini Live were the actual business when it was found that I used an aerogard hydroponics system only from the information it could see via my camera feed. After picking up this information, I received tailor -made care instructions as follows:

Okay, great. You can try to add a balanced fluid fertilizer to the water in your aerogard, follow the instructions on the label. This should help with nutrient problems. For the flowering rotation of the tomatoes, you can try to add a calcium supplement to the water.
Gemini life

While I usually immerse yourself in garden books, research studies or Reddit threads for hours to solve this type of problems, everything you see in this article happened within a few minutes.

Plant cultivation problems can often show the same symptoms and difficult to diagnose them, especially when they are just starting. Gemini was of crucial importance to help me overcome them.

Thanks to Gemini, my plants are more stronger than ever

The Gemini logo overlaps tomato plants.

(Photo credit: Future / Google)

If you have come so far and are not as enthusiastic about Gemini's gardener trips as I am, you will not be afraid. This is only one way of how Gemini Live can help you in your daily life, and there are many more. I used Gemini to solve problems with my plants, but in the Tech world we simply call this troubleshooting.

You can do exactly the same steps for almost everything else that you have to find out. In the first demo of Google from Project Astra on Google I/O 2024, the technology used it to fix a fifth turntable. These are exactly the types of things in which AI can be great – it is trained on material that contains user manuals, textbooks and even online forums. You can use the online history of the Internet without doing the work.

Before copying Gemini Live, try out his new multimodal camera support. When you find your Application for this becomes an invaluable value.

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