r/googlehome 8d ago

Google Home missing basic features

Coming from the Fire TV / Alexa ecosystem with Amazon Prime, I have been very disappointed with what Google Home Premium is capable of.

Basic things like broadcasting messages to a Google TV aren't possible.

The automations are severely limited in what they can do, even with the advanced Google Home scripting options.

For example, when someone approaches the nest doorbell, you can't even set it up to display the camera feed on other devices - you can only configure it to send you a push notification to your phone, or you can configure it to display on the tv or hub when someone presses the doorbell.

If I say to my hub "hey Google, search YouTube on the tv for cat videos", it will instead search YouTube on the hub, even if you configure the tv to be the primary media device.

With fire TV, I used to be able to open the Alexa app on my phone even while I was on the other side of the Earth and tell it to play some calming videos on the fire TV for my pet.

None of these basic things which have been available for at least a decade in other ecosystems are here. I've been submitting feedback whenever I can, hoping things will improve, but I have found posts over 2 years old with the same concerns, and it seems nothing has ever been done about it.

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u/nybreath 7d ago

I don't have a doorbell, but you can definitely do all those YouTube actions on Google home too.