Google Home, Sylvania Lightify and Smartthings compatability

[lookatami (Amit Arora)]

I am newbie here and this is my very first post, so please be easy.

I added to Sylvania Lightify bulbs to Smartthings. I can now control these bulbs through Smartthings app with no problems at all (Yay !!)

I’ve a google home too. I added Smartthings to Google home and these two bulbs show up under “Home control” as devices in Google Home app. I assigned rooms and gave nicknames to these bulbs too (no special characters used).

However, my google home does not recognize these bulbs through my voice commands. I mean I see the bulbs in the Home app but cannot control their state using voice commands to Google Home.

Questions
Do I need to add these Sylvania Lightify bulbs directly to Google home app too?
Do I need an Osram Gateway to connect these lights to Google Home?

Any help and suggestion will be much appreciated.

[bne (Bill)]

To answer your questions first; no and no.

GH seems to be more finicky since the last update, especially with rooms. Here are a couple of suggestions.

Make sure the bulb names are simple like garage light, bedroom light, etc.
Try saying telling GH to turn on the room, rather than the light name, e.g., “OK Google…turn on the bedroom.”

Another thing you can check is what GH thinks it heard. From the App, select 1 of the rooms or bulbs you tried unsuccessfully to turn on/off. From the 3 dots (top right) select My Activity. There you can see what GH thought it heard. Note: “Web & App Activity” needs to be “On” to see this. It is found under Google activity control from the GH App or from a browser.

Hope that helps.

[PhilB]

I agree with @bne. Also, Google home is funny about names. Make sure you don’t use plurals or possessive names for lights, that causes problems. One addition point as it relates to rooms. Google can turn the bedroom on, but it can also distinguish between lights and other devices. For example turn on bedroom fan as opposed to turn everything in the bedroom on.