A day with Google Home - my mini review

Finally excited to venture into a new ecosystem after a long time. It’s been a while since I got an “Enthusiast’s Gadget”, all I see over the past few months is me-too products and incremental improvements.

Always wanted to try out a Google Home or Amazon Echo and finally opted for a Google Home.

Setup – easy peasy but ensure you are connected to the same WiFi network on your phone/tablet operating the Google Home app for setup an trying to connect the same network on your Google Home. I was stupid enough to not realise this and struggled for a good 15 minutes

Device support – streaming right now to control via voice commands for media is limited to chromecast and very specific devices from brand such as Sony. I have a Sony Bravia W800D model in our hall which has Android OS in-built but I can’t use commands such as “Ok Google, play Peanuts trailer on my Hall TV” but if the same TV has a ChromeCast connected I can use such commands. Such a lame thing! Hopefull this will be rectified in the next update as showcase in CES 2017.

Services – most services are still quite nascent and imperfect. I will take example of Uber, when I linked my Uber account with Google Home and tried to book an Uber with the command “Ok Google, get me an Uber” it fails eventually and for multiple reasons I guess.
1. It fails to ask me for the exact pickup location, the location by default detects our colony but not my exact location.
2. It never asks me for destination! It might not be a compulsion in US I guess but fails to work here.
3. It always tried to book an Uber X and never even asks me or lets me book UberGo.

Most of the services are broken like this.

Songs – tried a lot to play telugu songs but it never ever ever picks it up well. 9 out of 10 attempts go wrong!

IFTTT – this is the best part! Loved tweaking tiny tasks using this service. Few tasks I set up.
1. Whenever I get home late my dad asks me to text him as soon as I reach home so that he knows that I am back. So I set up a IFTTT task with the following command “Ok Google, tell dad that I reached home” and then Google Home sends a SMS and Email to my dad’s phone. How cool is that?
This essentially happens because of IFTTT. It allows to set custom commands for Google Assistant for the “IF” aspect and for the “THEN” aspect I used GMAIL and Android SMS service.

That’s all I could explore today, more to come soon.

What I am excited about is to get Android TV update for my smart TV, get a few Xiaomi Yeelight LED bulbs and Strips for my bedroom and set it up. Note that Xiaomi Yeelight has no direct support from Google Home but IFTTT has support for it so all I need to do is spend few minutes in creating custom triggers.

Not to offend Android fans but Google Play Music base sucks badly compared to Apple Music! The database is nowhere near, ease of use is nowhere near and content management is bad too! Yes, it’s a bit cheaper than Apple Music but I would any day prefer Apple Music over the current state of Google Play Music. Hope Google does concentrate more on local content soon.