Whatever Google has been doing to the Google Home ecosystem to support Gemini AI has been a nightmare; however, what's happening to me today, may not be their problem.
When I direct Google Home to do a previously very simple and reliable "Turn [on | off] the " Google Home replies with "Sorry, I couldn't reach the Hubitat."
I have confirmed I can load the Hubitat page on my LAN and that the zigbee-switch can be controlled via the UI, and I have a Hubitat Ping Virtual Ping device that ensures the Hubitat can reach a well-known public internet IP-addres (8.8.8.8).
Can anyone tell me if the Hubitat cloud link to Google Home is experiencing difficulty? Further, can you give me a link so I can check this myself in future?
What happens when you tell google to sync devices? If you use the home app and type it, it will tell you if any did not sync. It will not tell you which ones, but it will tell you how many. Also, you should try the home app devices page and clicking on the devices.
Over the years, this happens to me sometimes as well.
When it was not because of not having any internet, 9 times out of ten, it was google. The other time out if ten, it was also google - I just thought it wasn't at first.
If you are not sure if you have a cloud connection, turn off the wifi on your phone, open a dashboard on the phone, and try to control a device. If it works, you have cloud.
PS Tomorrow morning, 4A to 10A Eastern, the cloud might have issues due to maintenance if you did not see the post about that.
Just for clarification purposes, tomorrow's maintenance only impacts my.hubitat.com website and the subscriptions management. The cloud infrastructure will not be affected.
(UPDATE: I seem to have found a work-around if not a root cause for the problem. I renamed the switch and now it responds to commands. I'm starting to think that Google has a "ghost device" with the same name as the one I'm trying to control because I can see Google Home flash that Zooz Z-Wave device with the same name as the Sonoff Zigbee switch I replaced it with when I use the app instead of a voice command. I verified that when I reconnect the Hubitat account to Google Home that the unplugged Zooz Z-Wave device does not have a checkmark next to it so Google Home shouldn't be seeing it in the link - yet it does.)
I did try to "reconnect account" via Works With Google inside of the Google Home app. I was able to see all my devices and reconnect the account without issues however I still could not control my switch via Google Home. I verified that I could control this switch with the Hubitat GUI in a browser on my LAN.
I also verified that other non-Hubitat devices (Lifx bulbs) were controllable via Google Home so this success points to something specifically broken between Hubitat and Google.
My mobile device assistants -- tablets, phone, etc -- no longer respond to "Sync my devices." I get all kinds of a rabbit-hole "what do you mean?"-like responses from the assistant as if the command is no longer supported with whatever frankenstein combination of Gemini w/ Google Home now exists on my devices.
Honestly, the whole mess is a cluster-eff of the highest order. IoT ecosystems are now the biggest disappointment (for me) of the tech age.
For google to appropriately respond, make sure the word "light" is not in the device name. Also, do not name it the same name as the room you put the google in and make sure it has its own complete name. (No "Couch1," "Couch2," "Dining Room" if it is in the dining room, etc).
That was something I had to learn the hard way and it will definitely be sporadic control if you get any control.
I didn't explicitly update to Gemini but have noticed all kinds of weird thing happening which I can only presume is related to backend infrastructure changes to support Gemini. (It's just a theory I have with no evidence.)
That's odd. I have run into a few naming restrictions but nothing this serious. I have lights with the word "light" and also named the same as the room the are in. Example: in my "Dining Room" I have a "Dining Room Light" that works. Same thing in the kitchen and guest room.
That's not to say I haven't been seeing the recent odd issues since the Gemini changeover (which I haven't done yet).
That was a lesson I learned hard at year ago. Lol.
In this case I'm having now the device is named "Cat Feeder" and I've used two different devices as "Cat Feeder" - a Zooz Switch and a Sonoff switch. Even though the Zooz Cat Feeder isn't shared out of Hubitat anymore Google Home still tries to control it, not the Sonoff one. When I renamed the Sonoff "Cat Feeder" to just "Kibbles" it works as a command and a "Cat Feeder" device linked to Hubitat still exists in Google Home but I can't see it - it just reports the error that started all this. It's super frustrating.
I think my solution is just to use "Kibbles" from now on and hope the ghost device is eventually purged.
They may have fixed this since I first had issues (maybe back pre 2020, maybe even before I got hubitat and was using ST). It was a known issue when I reported it to Google Support (back when you could acutally get support on chat). If you had light in the name and said to turn off XXX light, google would just puke. Same for if you had "Dining Room Chandelier" in the Room "Dining Room". Ditto for "Kitchen1," "Kitchen2," etc.
Voice control is usually not something I do unless I am trying to do something outside of an automation or a one off.
To be honest, I don't even try to get weather or regular responses that Google used to be able to handle as the reliability has gone to crap over the last few years (even pre Gemini). My speakers are now, for the most part, just speakers that I use HE announcments. When they die, they will be replaced by something not Google.
I have Google Routines that I use where I gave very specific and (weird) phrases that were 100% for years. Now, when I tell Google to close the shuttle bay doors, it plays something on Pandora. ("Close the shuttle bay doors" is my close the garage because I do not feel like opening the app or walking to the button)
I used ST too from 2015 to 2020 when I moved to HE. I rebuilt my system twice. Once in 2018 when I moved to Florida and then again in 2020 when I switched to HE and never ran into those types of naming issues. I guess I have been lucky over the last 10 years.
One thing that can cause problems is if you have a room and a devices with the same name. So lets say you have a room on google called "Living Room" and a switch called "Living Room", I have seen that cause issues, just food for thought.
I have learned that lesson before. In this case the names are definitely not the same. I retired an old device and added a new device giving it the same game as ttd old device I retired. And when I say retired I mean it's no longer even present on Hubitat to be shared with Google Home.
