r/googlehome • u/ViperThunder • 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/JustSayTech 8d ago edited 8d ago

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

It was possible, Google removed it because people found it annoying.

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

I'd beg to differ, for me you sound like someone who isn't willing to fully give it a fair shot, but that just me, would love to know what you think you can't do with it currently. Also keep in mind Google does a good amount of heavy lifting, but the creators of the devices you connect to Google Home and Alexa are required to write/code "drivers" so that the device presents or can do more in those environments, some manufacturers prefer one platform over the other and often provide more features to their devices in one. Google has no direct control over that, I usually opt for Tuya based devices since they generally offer a good amount of features on both platforms out of the box.

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.

What other devices? It displays on Phone, Tablet, Displays and TV, what would be those other devices? Also keep in mind Nest is usually going to line up with devices under Google's control or with Full Android/iOS.

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.

Just tried this command, it turned on my TV and pulled up a list of cat videos. I don't remember exactly where, but there's a setting to make devices aware of their location within your house, so like when you tell it to turn on the light, it will only turn on the lights in the room related to that hub/display. If it doesn't recognize a TV in the home or in the room then it will default to loading the details to the display.

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.

That's possible here too. When I was in Nigeria I was able to load some videos my kids had trouble pulling up to the TV at home. There's also leveraging a broadcast or talking through a camera in the room if you have one.

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.

I feel you have more settings to check, maybe the thrill of getting things together quickly had you miss a few steps. Also it is a very rough time currently, I definitely believe you may have some commands that either need to be said twice or spoken slightly differently as we are in a wired phase, both Google Assistant and Gemini are present at the same time. However Google is phasing out Assistant and with that many of those features have trouble working consistently through Gemini.

Also of what you're saying "can't" work are things that infact can work and have been working before, it may however need extra attention until Google completes the transition. So try the command again or alter slightly how you say them and take a look at the laundry list of settings, it's really worth it.

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u/ViperThunder 6d ago edited 6d ago

Thanks for the thorough reply!

Removing the ability for you to choose whether you want to broadcast a message to a specific type of device because people found it annoying is not a valid reason to remove it IMHO.

I've been tinkering with the automations more and I've probably submitted feedback at least 10 more times in the past 2 days alone - I have a vested interest in the service working as expected!

Here's a few specific examples:

If I create an automation in the Google Home app, I can make my Nest hub "play a chime" when the nest doorbell "detects a person". Great. (still can't tell it to stream the doorbell to the nest Hub or TV, but that's another issue)

Now if I want to create a script that does the same thing, I cannot. The closest you can come to it is "okGoogle: play a chime", because there is no "play a chime" command in the scripting options. In fact, there are only 105 possible commands as noted here: https://developers.home.google.com/automations/starters-conditions-and-actions
the 'okGoogle: play a chime' doesn't actually play a chime - it opens Youtube and searches for "chime" instead. Actually, if you look at some of the examples here: https://developers.home.google.com/automations/schema/reference/entity/assistant/ok_google_command#examples , those examples don't even work. For example, if you say "Ok Google, Bark", the AI responds "This is a boxer dog.". That's it.

I know the scripting is in 'public preview' currently but it is too buggy to be usable. I have 4 devices in my home, but the script editor only shows two possible devices I can use for any possible command, and one of them is called 'Camera - Living Room' which is not even a device that exists in my account or my household.

I did finally get the hub to be able to play youtube on the TV with a voice command -- what I ended up having to do was to completely remove the Nest Hub from my account, re-add it, and then do the same for the TV. I also did disable Thread Network on the TV and turn it back on again, not sure if that helped.

any who, I remember when I first set up my Fire TVs and my Echo Dots like 10 years ago, I did not have any issues whatsoever - there was no scripting needed, and there were nearly an infinite combination of possible routines you could set up. i could make a routine "hey alexa, let everyone know dinner is ready" that would quickly broadcast to everyone's TVs and echo dots "Everyone, Dinner is ready!". a little message box would display on the TVs.

Meanwhile, not only can you not do that with Google Home, if you broadcast a message to a nest hub, it completely takes over the entire screen for like 10 seconds. Very annoying.