Looks like the ability to have routines manually ran from the app or a widget on a tablet or phone home screen has been removed. This was an easy way to setup a "pseudo" dashboard for Good Morning or Good Night. Google seems to be moving everything into their assistant for interactions with their automation services. I have a couple of friends that use Google Home for their Wi-Fi devices and this is defiantly a loss for them.
Google seem to piss around everyday. I had a routine that used to trigger at 6am saying "set all speakers to 30%"
They broke that. I had to change it to
"Set X speaker to 30%"
They broke that
I then had to change it to
"Set X speaker to 3"
Wish they would stop pissing around
2 Likes
Google’s history in the smart home/IoT realm would suggest they’re ok with continuing to make breaking changes, even completely canning a project, in the interest of progress (however that’s defined by the overlords at Alphabet?).
2 Likes
That seems to be a common complaint with Google on Reddit. Google's constant changes to the platform and the core issue is that their focus is on monetization vs. consistency. I have run out of fingers on my hand for how many leadership changes they have made in their Google Home group in the past 2 years. Each time a new person takes over the platform it goes though a "re-visioning" phase.
They probably purposely break things to see how the AI resolves it.
They aren't really a search engine, or a smart home maker. They are an AI company
1 Like
I really hoping they are just making some temporary changes to get ready for the presence sensing to be integrated into Routines
Released in 2023 
I'm still waiting for their Google Assistant Driving that they demo'd probably 12 months ago
