Sell me on Google Home

About question 2...

Not sure what's going on with your setup. I also name all of my devices Living Room Lamps, Living Room Ceiling Light, etc. Google turns on just the one I want (Google, turn on Living Room Lamps). But if I say 'Google, turn on all Living Room Lights', then it'll say 'Turning on 5 lights'.

Not sure if everyone can do this one yet but I can also say 'Google, turn off the lights' and it will ONLY turn off the lights in the Room that I'm in! Really cool. Only problem is sometimes a Mini in the other room will hear me and turn off the lights in that room instead, lol.

Nothing against Google Home/Assistant as there has been some cool advancements in AI and voice. BUT Google is an advertising company and not a technology company similar to Amazon. Their focus on technology is solely to promote Google search advertising. If it doesn’t do that they do not heavily invest. Aka GoogleDocs has had little investment over the past 4 years.

The sad part is true tech companies like Microsoft, Apple and Oracle can’t seem to be as innovative due to they don’t have customers with similar real world issues/needs like Google and Amazon. Seem to always come up short. Siri is still 3 years behind. Cortana went back to the Halo world. Oracle...well they talk about how they were going to do something but...

Just interesting times. :grin:

Geezus...I'm not enjoying this app interface at all. I can't seem to delete all the Hue scenes that are scattered across all my rooms. There only seems to be an option to unlink service, which says it will pretty much delete all my Hue devices. Is GH all or nothing with the Hue and Lutron integration. I really hope I missing the obvious here.

Can you delete the scenes in the hue app?

I probably could, but it seems silly to force that many items on you at once. What if I did use them, but didn't want to control it via voice. That's a LOT of extra devices to clutter up the interface needlessly. In any case, I deleted the Hue integration and added them back via the HE integration. I'm ok with it this way...just felt it was strange how GH/Hue set that up.

My new "issue"....and this one was a real surprise...there is no Sonos integration? Really?
I assumed there was at least a basic integration already in place when they announced the Sonos Play One would have it built in. I guess I shouldn't be surprised since this promise hasn't happened yet either...but really...no integration at all. :pensive:

This is really reinforcing my decision to stick with Echo devices. Still hoping for some good surprises to make this difficult for me.

?? When did that happen?

Keep in mind you need to be on the latest firmware and this is in beta so you might have to redo everything when the official version comes out.

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Wow...talk about timing..I just got this in my goolge news feed (the google spy bot is in full effect now...looks like they are scanning my HE posts too :joy:)

Pretty sad news though. Another strike for GH in my book.

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This whole hierarchical division of services in the smartworld is a PIA.

Another question for you fine folks.
I was pleasantly surprised to see ADT Pulse as an integration. I added this and also added my ecobee thermostat. I now have devices that look like this in GH. I assume the ecobee sensor is being seen as an occupancy or motion device.


My question is..what can I do with these? I dont see any options for, if then then that operations.

So I figured out how to use the ecobee sensors. Add them to a room and ask "what's the reading from my <room name> <sensor name> sensor". Works perfectly.

I can't figure out how to read my ADT sensors. Tried the same format and it returns a web search. Anyone have ADT or similar system integrated with some insight?

I was looking to see if there was any discussion on Cortana. This is about it. She supports that other hub but not HE. Since moving to HE I miss the text interface of Cortana to issue commands from my PC or phone. The Alexa integration works, just tell Cortana, "Let me talk to Alexa", and it switches assistants. So while I can still use my Invoke (a steal at $50) or my tablet to issue voice commands I miss the text interface. Anyone else using Cortana out there?

I have the Tile Skill on Alexa. You just say “Alexa, ask Tile to find my phone” and it rings your phone, even if the ringer is off. Not available on Google Home.

If you have a Tile, then you can ask it to find your keys or whatever you labeled that Tile as, and it will beep it for you.

Supports multiple phones and tiles. No need to own a Tile to use the phone finder.

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I just tried it...works really well and my phone starts ringing almost immediately. No IFTTT lag. Only downside is it's another app to install.

I will keep ie for a while since it's faster and the music keeps going (the pushover method only rings for a short time by comparison). Thanks for the suggestion.

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Same thing with an Alexa routine, you type in what you want to say. Then pick the actions for her to do. So If I say "I'm cold" she turns on the space heater under my desk via HE.

Not quite the same thing....I thought the same as you did at first but this is different.

With Google Home you can set up a routine that launches with whatever phrase you like (just like Alexa can do now) but....the actions can be the actual text of the command you want to execute. Not sure how to explain this via text...but essentially the Action to execute would be the voice command (typed out) you need to execute.

Using Echo Show as an example... there is no option to "Show front door camera" as an action in a routine. Well if it were google home, you could simply turn the voice command into an action. In action box you would type "Show me the front door camera" and voila. Not the best example but the only one I can think of this early in the morning.

Aaah I got. That is cool!

What is not available in GH? Because if you mean to find the phones, my wife uses that feature of GH all the time, with phone in mute GH makes it ring.

The Tile app isn’t available. How do you do it in GH with ringer on mute? I’m on iOS. Is this a native Android feature?