Google Home FAQ

AngelaRI

wexfordman2 wrote: »

Nope, oder online from Google UK store is your best bet. Even if someone is selling here direct, you might have an issue warranty wise etc

I second that. Mine shipped next-day, arrived at Parcel Motel day after, no issues, and they have good prices from time to time, so keep an eye on the site - over Black Friday and around Christmas time they were selling the Mini for £34 (normal price £49). The Google Home was majorly discounted around this time too. I would imagine perhaps a deal could pop up around Easter too maybe.

https://store.google.com/gb/product/google_home_mini

AidenL

I ordered one, but cancelled and decided I’d watch for deals.

How do you guys find this compares to the Echo or HomePod?

bk

AidenL wrote: »

I ordered one, but cancelled and decided I’d watch for deals.

How do you guys find this compares to the Echo or HomePod?

I have both GH and Echo and I think GH is much better. Far more natural.

No experience of the HomePod, but reviews say it has amazing audio quality but is lacking in Home Automation and AI features.

donspeekinglesh

Anyone else having trouble contacting AccuWeather?

The Black Oil

Having problems with the Mini since Sunday. 'There was a glitch/hang on until I connect to wi-fi', etc. Internet connection is a bit wonky, so could be just that, though it has settled, mostly. Mini still patchy. I tried turning it on and off and removed the cable.

wolfyboy555

Does GH work with Climote?

adox

Anyone having issues with their googles and Hue?

Mine both had been working flawlessly but recently the lights have stopped working with voice commands.

The assistant acknowledges the request and says it has does it but nothing happens. Like “hey google turn on bedroom light” and it says “ok turning on bedroom light” but nothing happens.

I’ve checked the Hue hub which is fine. The Hue app works fine and instantly as normal. Don’t really want to delete all my lights and set them up again.

adox

Impatient me unlinked the Hue account and re-linked it and they are working again.

Did have to reassign them to rooms again and also remade nicknames.

bk

wolfyboy555 wrote: »

Does GH work with Climote?

No, it is very limited in it's connectivity.

wolfyboy555

bk wrote: »

No, it is very limited in it's connectivity.

Thank you.

judeboy101

Has Netflix stopped working with ghome?

Bored Accountant

adox wrote: »

Anyone having issues with their googles and Hue?

Mine had been acting up the last week or 2 with different things.
would ask the mini 'play music from spotify', it would respond, 'playing music from spotify', and nothing would happen. Seems to be back working normally today.

It seems to do the same with everything. just be moody and not do what its told, or very slow to respond. I'm putting that down to my internet speed. (2.5mb tops)

ixoy

Noticed that they bumped up the default period for soothing sounds (e.g. "play ocean sounds", "play babbling brook sounds" ) from 1 hour to 12 which makes far more sense.

Also, in case people haven't seen it, there's a list of fun easter eggs to try.

bk

Bored Accountant wrote: »

It seems to do the same with everything. just be moody and not do what its told, or very slow to respond. I'm putting that down to my internet speed. (2.5mb tops)

Just to say that I haven't noticed any issues with GH, so it is probably connected with your BB (or maybe wifi). I'm on 240Mbps Virgin Media, pretty much rock solid.

BTW FYI for those interested, broadband quality can come down to multiple factors, not just top speed, but also latency, dropped packets, uptime, etc.

And then separately you have the performance of your wifi.

I suspect good quality broadband and wifi play a big part in the reliability of devices like GH, Alexa, etc.

Of course the quality of the "cloud" servers makes a difference too, but Google and Amazon really should have that down to an art form by now.

Bored Accountant

bk wrote: »

Just to say that I haven't noticed any issues with GH, so it is probably connected with your BB (or maybe wifi). I'm on 240Mbps Virgin Media, pretty much rock solid.

BTW FYI for those interested, broadband quality can come down to multiple factors, not just top speed, but also latency, dropped packets, uptime, etc.

Thanksfully eir Fibre has just arrived, so I'm just waiting for it to be installed and then I'll go from 2.5mbs to 150 mbs

bk

Bored Accountant wrote: »

Thanksfully eir Fibre has just arrived, so I'm just waiting for it to be installed and then I'll go from 2.5mbs to 150 mbs

Nice, I suspect you will see big improvements then. And not just the headline, given that it is actually a fibre optic cable right to your door, it should have vastly better latency and reliability then your current bit of wet string!

Bored Accountant

bk wrote: »

Nice, I suspect you will see big improvements then. And not just the headline, given that it is actually a fibre optic cable right to your door, it should have vastly better latency and reliability then your current bit of wet string!

Yup fibre right to the door. Was due to be installed today, but the lovely snow put a stop to that. So will have to wait an extra week or 2.

adox

bk wrote: »

Just to say that I haven't noticed any issues with GH, so it is probably connected with your BB (or maybe wifi). I'm on 240Mbps Virgin Media, pretty much rock solid.

BTW FYI for those interested, broadband quality can come down to multiple factors, not just top speed, but also latency, dropped packets, uptime, etc.

And then separately you have the performance of your wifi.

I suspect good quality broadband and wifi play a big part in the reliability of devices like GH, Alexa, etc.

Of course the quality of the "cloud" servers makes a difference too, but Google and Amazon really should have that down to an art form by now.

It seemed to be some sort of glitch with mine as the unlinking the and linking the Hue account sorted it straight away.

With Vodafone, average speed is about 40 and even though it was the Mini upstairs the other night(still a strong signal up there) it happened first on my Home which is about three feet from the router.

Oh and my issue with it keeping asking me to sign into my account when asking about my commute - it seems very sensitive to recognizing my voice! I’ve started saying Hey Google a little slower and am very wary of the tone of my voice. Too high or too low and it doesn’t seem to recognize it. :pac:

bk

adox, yes, another thing to watch out for is your wifi router. It isn't just about distance from the wifi router, but the quality of the router, how many connections can it simultaneously support, etc.

I don't seem to suffer the various reliability issues that other people mention having and I wonder if it is down to me having a combination of the following:

- Rock solid, reliable, fast broadband.
- Very good quality wifi router (I don't use the ISP supplied one) with very good reception throughout my home.
- Two ethernet ports in each room of my home, which I connect everything that I can too (takes strain off the wifi).
- Smaller home, apartment, which means I suffer less from wireless distance problems.

Of course it could also be down to Google servers, etc. But if it was you would more likely hear a lot of complaints from multiple users on various GH forums.

Instead I suspect people can suffer problems for different reasons, personal to themselves. Poor quality broadband, poor quality wifi router, networking issues, big home, walls that make wireless not work well, interference, etc.

Just something to keep in mind.

BobbyT28

Been using the Asus DSL AC68u (Modem) and Asus RT AC68U (AP). Both have been rocked solid for me.

RonnieL

RonnieL wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. I'm thinking of ordering a good handful of smart sockets so I did a bit of searching on aliexpress. Would these be ok? I haven't bought from here before so I'm wary of knock offs etc. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Sonoff-S20-Wifi-Wireless-Remote-Control-Socket-Smart-Home-Power-Socket-EU-US-UK-Standard-Via/32832385095.html?spm=2114.search0104.3.3.bXsMcL&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_1_5130011_10152_10065_10151_10344_10068_10130_10345_10324_10342_10547_10325_10343_10546_10340_10341_10548_10545_5000011_10541_10084_10083_10307_5080011_10539_5690011_10312_10059_10313_10314_10534_100031_10604_10603_10103_10605_10594_10596_5060011_10142_10107,searchweb201603_31,ppcSwitch_2&algo_expid=2ad406cb-c0a1-4ac4-9495-95b3dd60197b-0&algo_pvid=2ad406cb-c0a1-4ac4-9495-95b3dd60197b&rmStoreLevelAB=2

I meant to post back here a few weeks ago - the sonoff s20's I ordered from aliexpress arrived (eventually) and they work perfectly.

RonnieL

So I just bought a new AV receiver to replace my old broken one. I decided to buy the PIONEER
VSX932 (from richer sounds via this thread) in no small part because if its "chromecast built in" functionality. I already had a google home mini in the same room, so I wanted to set the new receiver up as the default speaker for the mini to make use of the good speakers. I set up the receiver and I could see it straight away in the google home app devices. Unfortunately, when I went to adjust the settings of the mini, the receiver was not listed as an option for default speaker. I tried working around this by creating a group with the receiver and the mini, which did show up in the list, but when I ask the mini to play music, no sound plays (despite the title of the song showing up on the screen of the receiver). I noticed also that if I try to cast to it directly from spotify, the same thing happens. It's hard to say at this point if this is a spotify, a pioneer, or a google issue. A long shot I know, but any thoughts on things I could try?

Note: I can actually play music from spotify on the receiver by using it's built in "spotify connect" feature, but what I want is for the kids to be able to play music by interacting with the mini.

eoinfitzokk

mgray wrote: »

This isn't working for me. Only physically added items seem to appear on shopping list on assistant. Ask gh what's in shopping list and it only repeats the voice added items...??

Edit to say I figured it out, items were saved in my son's shopping list for some reason, retrained the voice and sotred...

I use ifttt so that I can add items to Todoist by saying, add x to my to do list. Got pissed off with Google splitting up the Google Keep integration from assistant. It shouldn't be the case that you say add x item my to my shopping list and google places it in Keep if you use Google Now and A Shopping list online using assistant.

the heathen

RonnieL wrote:

I meant to post back here a few weeks ago - the sonoff s20's I ordered from aliexpress arrived (eventually) and they work perfectly.

[/quote]

Yup, I got em too. Incredible value at just 11 euro each. Great purchase.

Sheep Shagger

Need to try wifi calling to see if it works here...

http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/google-home-uk-hands-free-calling-assistant-3411194

At the end of the article there's details of £10 off a mini at Currys (UK)

mgray

Sheep Shagger wrote: »

At the end of the article there's details of £10 off a mini at Currys (UK)

Same reduction in the play store..

jogdish

Sheep Shagger wrote: »

Need to try wifi calling to see if it works here...

ohh please someone check this out! I'm away from my Home till tomorrow!

jogdish

Home mini down to 39 on the UK play store also!

Eeek, do I

ixoy

jogdish wrote: »

Home mini down to 39 on the UK play store also!

Eeek, do I

Ohh.. Do I now need a fourth?

jogdish

ixoy wrote: »

Ohh.. Do I now need a fourth?

your fourth could be the last step in sky net achieving self awareness, provided my third arrives first