Google Home FAQ

georgewickstaff

I got on to Netflix and Google support this morning.

All very blah. They have the get out of jail card of it not having been released in Ireland yet.

I will not be holding my breath. I'm not impressed to be honest. Netflix was the only reason I bought it!

:eek:

OnDraught

What were people doing with it for Netflix?
I could tell it to turn on and play if I knew what I wanted to watch. I still ended up using the remote to browse. Still a shame if they are starting to geoblock other things. I've been mainly using it for tune-in and Spotify. If they go it's useless to me.

georgewickstaff

OnDraught wrote: »

What were people doing with it for Netflix?
I could tell it to turn on and play if I knew what I wanted to watch. I still ended up using the remote to browse. Still a shame if they are starting to geoblock other things. I've been mainly using it for tune-in and Spotify. If they go it's useless to me.

Hey Google, play stranger things..

Kids..

Hey Google, play peppa pig

Not the end of the world not having voice control but irritating as its just an expensive egg timer now which lives in the front room. Egg free zone.

All year I was having the odd day of "Play Classic Christmas FM" and now in December she steadfastly refuses to play it!! Keeps going onto a Spotify playlist even though I specify TuneIn.

It's like they slashed the price for Black Friday and then set about making the device unusable.

By the way I grabbed Google Assistant app from here. Might be easier than using Revolut etc.

Shlippery

Deleted User wrote: »

By the way I grabbed Google Assistant app from here. Might be easier than using Revolut etc.

Not an option on the iPhone unfortunately!

AngelaRI

One thing I noticed: I was going crazy at not being able to find where to set custom shortcuts on Google Assistant, until I stumbled across someone mentioning they had to their device and app language to English (US) - I was on English (UK) and missing (greyed out) all of my services and other settings. Changed my phone to US English, changed Google Assistant app and Google home mini to US English, and volia, shortcuts for me to add and edit!!!

DoubleJoe7

Deleted User wrote: »

By the way I grabbed Google Assistant app from here. Might be easier than using Revolut etc.

Hmm. Tried that and it's telling me "The Google Assistant isn't available on this device".

Changed the phone's language to English (UK), checked and both the version of Android and Google are more recent than the minimum required. It says 1.4GB of memory is needed, I checked and I have 1.6GB.

Any ideas?

Mech1

DoubleJoe7 wrote: »

Hmm. Tried that and it's telling me "The Google Assistant isn't available on this device".

Changed the phone's language to English (UK), checked and both the version of Android and Google are more recent than the minimum required. It says 1.4GB of memory is needed, I checked and I have 1.6GB.

Any ideas?

Try this.
https://fossbytes.com/get-enable-google-assistant-android/

BionicRasher

Mini arrived today.
About to start the set up

If I am reading this thread correctly then I need the following

To get Netflix working then set main Google account to UK (I can use my Parcel Wizard address and Revolut card) to download the correct assistant app.

To get shortcuts and broadcasting working then change phone language to US. (Android)

Any other nuggets of wisdom

bk

BionicRasher, nope, that is about it. It works pretty well out of the box, the above steps are only needed for the most advanced features, Multiuser accounts and Shortcuts.

Only thing, Netflix may or may not continue to work. It seems to be a wider issue then just making changes like this.

ixoy

BionicRasher wrote: »

To get shortcuts and broadcasting working then change phone language to US. (Android)

I've my phone set to English (Ireland) and I can do both shortcuts and broadcasting.

DoubleJoe7

DoubleJoe7 wrote: »

Hmm. Tried that and it's telling me "The Google Assistant isn't available on this device".

Changed the phone's language to English (UK), checked and both the version of Android and Google are more recent than the minimum required. It says 1.4GB of memory is needed, I checked and I have 1.6GB.

Any ideas?

Ignore this - I restarted my phone and it works! Having the assistant also means we could set up multiple accounts in the house. Thanks for the help all!

Lostphrophet

Just wondering....
What is the logic behind Google not selling the Google Home or Mini in the Irish Republic...?
It makes no sense to me or is there something im missing?!?
Surely they know there are thousands of these devices being imported every week from Uk sales sites
I tried google answer but nothing comes up

bk

Lostphrophet wrote: »

Just wondering....
What is the logic behind Google not selling the Google Home or Mini in the Irish Republic...?
It makes no sense to me or is there something im missing?!?
Surely they know there are thousands of these devices being imported every week from Uk sales sites
I tried google answer but nothing comes up

I suspect it is localisation. For instance, while we speak English, we have a lot of Irish words and place names that GH seem to have difficulty with.

We are sort of lucky that we speak English and thus can sort of get it working here, it isn't available at all in many languages. Nor is it officially available in Australia, New Zealand, etc. yet.

It could also be that we are just too small a country to bother too much with. Same with Apple not having an Apple Store here.

adox

On glitch I seem to have lately which is annoying is when I say in the morning " hey Google hows my commute?" I get a reply of "please log in to your google account and put in your work address". Of course I already have this information in.

I follow up by saying "hey Google hows my day?" and it gives me my commute information(along with the weather news etc.

If I then ask it again about my commute straight afterwards it works fine.

It was pretty flawless for the first week or so but a few things have no arisen that make the experience a lot less seamless than it was. Still a much better experience than Amazons Echo but not as much as it once was.

mik_da_man

Got my Minis from eBay today. All legit!

One thing that's annoying me is all the add for then now, my GH is having a fit in the sitting room doing what's being done on the ad!

Gosh

Hi,

Got my Home Mini yesterday and went to get it setup. Plugged it in, downloaded the app and after 6 hours and as many attempts could not get the app to finish setup. Gets as far as downloading the update, counting down from 4 minutes, then doing the voice recognition training but each time just get a message saying "There may hve been an error". The white leds on the top continue to flash. If I close the app, reboot the Mini it just says it hasn't been setup. Anybody else experience these problems?

Fixed problem: setup new google account and used that.

BobPresto

Gosh wrote:

Got my Home Mini yesterday and went to get it setup. Plugged it in, downloaded the app and after 6 hours and as many attempts could not get the app to finish setup. Gets as far as downloading the update, counting down from 4 minutes, then doing the voice recognition training but each time just get a message saying "There may hve been an error". The white leds on the top continue to flash. If I close the app, reboot the Mini it just says it hasn't been setup. Anybody else experience these problems?

Have you reset it with the button underneath?

AngelaRI

adox wrote: »

On glitch I seem to have lately which is annoying is when I say in the morning " hey Google hows my commute?" I get a reply of "please log in to your google account and put in your work address". Of course I already have this information in.

I follow up by saying "hey Google hows my day?" and it gives me my commute information(along with the weather news etc.

If I then ask it again about my commute straight afterwards it works fine.

It was pretty flawless for the first week or so but a few things have no arisen that make the experience a lot less seamless than it was. Still a much better experience than Amazons Echo but not as much as it once was.

Same happened to me this morning - how often do you get this? First time for me today!

Gosh

BobPresto wrote: »

Have you reset it with the button underneath?

Yes each time, get the warning message and then leave it pressed until green light comes on after 15 seconds. Then turn off, wait 1 minute and go again

54and56

So I eventually got multi user working on my Google Home. I spent 2 hours on the Chat IM with support last Saturday without success but escalated it and promised to respond.

On Sunday I had a software problem with my phone (OnePlus 5) so decided I'd to a factory reset and a low level restore i.e. instead of automatically reinstalling all apps and app data from the auto backup function I added my apps one by one (only took four hours!) and set them up from scratch deleting about 70 apps I never use from my Play Store library in the process.

Having gotten my phone back up and running I did a Factory Reset of the GH and set it up again from the fresh install of the GH app on my phone and all worked perfectly including Multi User.

I then got an email from GH support yesterday thanking me for bringing the problem I was having to their attention and apologising that they had taken a few days to respond but they had been working on some changes which they hoped would solve the problem!!

Anyway, all's well that ends well.

One other thing I've found which I really like is "Shortcuts" where you can assign an action to a specific short statement.

Previously if I wanted to turn on the heating using GH I'd have to say "Set the
family room temperature to 22 degrees" but now all I have to say is "I'm freezing" and it compliantly states it is setting the family room temperature to 22 degrees!!

I also set up other commonly used shortcuts like "It's Saturday morning" and it plays the Spotify Playlist I like to listen to when chilling out on a Saturday morning etc.

The kids also love it and are currently bombarding me by saying "OK Google, play Lil Pump Gucci Gang." - Give it a go, it's an eye opener!!

adox

AngelaRI wrote: »

Same happened to me this morning - how often do you get this? First time for me today!

It has been happening intermittently over the last few days.

Of course Murphys Law - I post about it yesterday and this morning it works no problem!

ixoy

adox wrote: »

It has been happening intermittently over the last few days.

I got this yesterday when I asked it to turn on a light. I tried again and she did it without issue.

And still no Netflix fix..

OnDraught

A new problem I have encountered is that it is being heavily advertised on BT Sports. The ad demonstrates how it works but every time it is on mine plays some song called "Washing Up" in response to the ad. Funny the first time, not anymore.

Heroditas

Tearing my hair out here. Got the Speaker and it was working fine but just can't seem to change any of its settings in the Google Home app.
Removed the speaker from the app and now can't add it back in again...
I'm not even getting an option to add any new devices in the app on my phone. Bizarre and very frustrating. It keeps asking me to log in via the Google Home app but I'm already logged in.
Anyone got any ideas???

griffdaddy

Got the 3 pack of minis from Google ebay shop back on black Friday and loving them. Have it controlling the nest and three rooms of hue lights, all a mix of hue, innr and Ikea bulbs running off a Philips hue hub. The whole stream to entire home thing is amazing, especially with the Chromecast audio hooked up the main stereo. Also have normal Chromecasts on two TVs. It really brought all the stuff I already had lying around together. Playing tunein and Google music and broadcasting messages around the house is great craic. The microphone sensitivity seems very good. It really is a bargain piece of technology

Heroditas

Right, did a hard reset of the speaker and was able to add it again.

grumpygit

RonnieL wrote: »

I've got a chromecast audio hooked up to an AV receiver in my playroom. It buzzes a bit when it's turned on without music playing though, and having to walk in and turn it on kindof ruins the buzz. Any recommendations on a smart socket i could buy so i could turn on the receiver using google home before sending music to it? Happy to wait for delivery if there's a lower cost alternative from the east.

I had the same noise issue. I was using a RCA cable I already had at home for the connection so I bought an RCA cable from the google store and now there is not a whisper from the speaker when nothing is playing. Bad news is it cost €19. As for turning the AV receiver on I am using tp link sockets from amazon (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01I3ZCBFK/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) which so far are working perfectly, just make sure your receiver does not go into standby when power is turned off and on again

DrZeuss

Damn you Google.... it seems they removed chaining of 2 commands now.
I had a load of 2 barrel shortcuts set up :mad: