I got my Google Home from Bestbuy in the mail yesterday. Took about 5 minutes to setup, and its working great with Smartthings. I assume its close to the same like having an Echo. I am very invested into Google with music/movies/TV so I never cared about echo.
Setting up Smartthings was as simple as signing in, checking the boxes for lights/thermostat to control. I did have to recreate rooms within the Google Home app and assign lights again. From here it was easy to control the lights and they responded within a second. I enjoyed the fact I could just say “Hey Google, turn up the heat.” and it would respond.
Routines are not supported out of the box, only lights. With a quick search, a virtual switch allowed me to run the one scene I cared about. I enjoyed the fact IFTTT would recognize three different ways I could say “bedtime”, “it’s time for bed”, “get ready for bed”, to “turn on” bedtime scene.
A non-smartthings tip for multi-user families with music. Have them share their play list with you. Allows other uses access to their lists without recreating. So my wife could just say “OK Google, play Gina’s Playlist” and it would play even though its created on her account. There is a guest feature, I haven’ted play with this. I probably will. We have nephews that visit that I think would enjoy playing their music on the Home.
Also, the Easter eggs and games are a lot of fun. Can be a good laugh to have a conversation with Google Home.
@Mbhforum I’ll let everyone know about that tonight. I ordered one from Google and one from Bestbuy. I have one in the living room. Tonight I will be adding the second in the bedroom.
So far my limit of use has been with my shield tv and my nexus player. I could tell it to play to living room tv or play to bedroom tv without issues.
There is a video on youtube from cnet about assigning audio devices to rooms for group audio. I’m hoping I can do the same with google home devices. Play music in two different rooms with the google home devices.
You can create groups of devices within the Alexa app. Such as “Living Room Lights”, which you can then use like “Alexa, turn off Living Room Lights”
Yes, but with Alexa, you cannot tie a group to a specific Echo/Dot. The goal would be to say turn on the lights and that command would turn the lights on in the room you are in. You cannot do this currently.
Google Home is the same with that issue right now. When I say turn the lights off, it turns off all the lights. Not just that room. Would make sense it would control only the room it is in.
I got 2 and so far they are better than the Echo when it came out.
Echo worked with very few 3rd party apps and one of them was not ST.
You can give your devices nicknames which is nice. For example:
I have 3 living room lights, I added them to the Room Living Room. But to easier control them seperatly I gave them nicknames like Couch light or TV Light.
For fun try these:
Hey Google, How would I say I want a pizza in Italian, then say"Hey Google, How would I say it in Spanish"
Note: Google Assistant recognizes “lights” and “switches” as different kinds of devices. E.g., if you say “Ok Google, turn on the lights,” it will turn on smart light bulbs but may not turn on smart switches that are connected to lamps or other lighting fixtures. To control those switches, add the word “light” to the name or nickname of the device.
I think you only have those two options. I found myself switching from OK to Hey.
Hey Google seemed to flow better myself, I am happy with that.
In the past Google NOW had a few Easter egg listening phrases that worked. (I think OK, Jarvis was one of them.) I will test some of them when I get home tonight.
I will look at the power cord when I get home. Hopefully someone else can answer that question sooner than I can.
