Google Home megathread

Hi so, just wanted to create a thread where we can share everything regarding google home.
Whether it may it be rules, issues and ideas.

So ill start, what is the fanciest command you guys are using with google home?

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I am working on using virtual switches and voice shortcuts to get Google Home to control a second Harmony Hub (it will only control one natively). I still have some bugs to work out.

Having Google Home connected to the Harmony Hub (and smartthings) is really cool when you tell google to pause the Fire TV and it does as well as raise the lights from off in the living room. The reverse happens when you tell it to resume the Fire TV.

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Great! I wonder if anyone was able to ask google home the status of a sensor?
Like getting info regarding last check in time, last open state (for a contact sensor)
I believe its possible to do it via tasker and Sharptools but i wonder if theres anyone out there who managed to do this a different way

I built an app for Google Home to control and query status of devices as a proof of concept. I’m the developer of SharpTools, so I used the existing SharpTools APIs and paired that up with API.ai for the language parsing and a simple Node.JS app for proxying the API.ai commands to the SharpTools API. (API.ai is limited to POST requests and the SharpTools API uses a mix of other HTTP verbs, hence the need for the simple app to proxy requests)

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Great thats exactly what i was looking into! Im starting to lookup how api.ai is working, but it annoys me that i need to say “OK google, lemme speak to xxx” before saying the command.

Any ways around that?

I built the PoC several months ago and at the time, you had to submit a form to be accepted as a partner if you didn’t want to use an invocation name (formerly called “Direct Actions”).

Doing some quick research, it looks like the Smart Home capabilities are now publicly documented and I’m not seeing requirements for joining a partner program. The Smart Home actions seem to require a more complicated authorization flow and you have to host your own app (rather than through API.ai), so it seems like a bit of a tradeoff between ease of developing and having to use the invocation name.

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Sounds complicated 0_0, i wonder if theres another way to go about it…
looking at ifttt and tasker??? but i have no idea how to find a place in between to parse through api.ai

Haha. I think I was looking for a reason to write a Google Home integration, but yeah… more complicated than most people are probably interested in.

I’m pretty sure João added Google Home support for AutoVoice or one of his plugins. Perhaps you investigate that approach?

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Yep, its the same

You can issue AutoVoice commands in Google Assistant by saying Ask AutoVoice to do something:

Yep harmony hub is cool. Don’t have one yet.
Basically for my tv setup (seeing that i only have a chromecast) i just power it on/off by using a smart plug… whether or not thats good for the tv or not, is still a big question mark

I have turned my Phillips LED TV on/off that way for over 3 years and its still kicking.

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