Google Home FAQ

RunDMC

Google Home Ambient Sounds

https://support.google.com/googlehome/answer/7364558?hl=en

You can also ask Google to play for 60 minutes, for example.

R

54and56

Super info guys, she'll be delighted!!

Thank you.

Pugzilla

Where do people buy Google Home considering it's not officially sold in Ireland?

The high horse brigade

Pugzilla wrote: »

Where do people buy Google Home considering it's not officially sold in Ireland?

Google UK

Pugzilla

Wouldn't you be better off just getting a Sonos One considering Google Assistant is coming to it later this year?

The high horse brigade

Pugzilla wrote: »

Wouldn't you be better off just getting a Sonos One considering Google Assistant is coming to it later this year?

I have Google assistant on a Nvidia shield, it's a long way off being as good as assistant in my Google home so I just use the Google home and have assistant disabled on the Shield

Pugzilla

The high horse brigade wrote: »

I have Google assistant on a Nvidia shield, it's a long way off being as good as assistant in my Google home so I just use the Google home and have assistant disabled on the Shield

Sonos has a history of great product support. They still update speakers that are over 10 years old.

Pugzilla

How do people find the auido quality for music on the Google Home? Seems to be better regarded than the Echo in reviews.

The high horse brigade

Pugzilla wrote: »

Sonos has a history of great product support. They still update speakers that are over 10 years old.

I'm not saying that, I'm saying that the Google assistant experience could be watered down. Nvidia also give great support to the Shield

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

The high horse brigade

Pugzilla wrote: »

How do people find the auido quality for music on the Google Home? Seems to be better regarded than the Echo in reviews.

I don't listen to music on either of mine, I cast to better sound systems, one connected to the Shield, the other has a Chromecast audio

Fishy1

RTE Radio 1 is gone again . . .

jogdish

Yup RTE 1 gone again...:mad:

Pugzilla

This is why you don't use a product not supported in this country. I'm waiting for official release before considering getting into the google speaker ecosystem.

jogdish

Pugzilla wrote: »

This is why you don't use a product not supported in this country. I'm waiting for official release before considering getting into the google speaker ecosystem.

It had been reported that it doesnt work from the UK either.

The high horse brigade

Pugzilla wrote: »

This is why you don't use a product not supported in this country. I'm waiting for official release before considering getting into the google speaker ecosystem.

Lots of us set to USA region anyway as it offers much more

BionicRasher

Pugzilla wrote: »

This is why you don't use a product not supported in this country. I'm waiting for official release before considering getting into the google speaker ecosystem.

The positives far outweigh the negatives of the Google Home.

The high horse brigade

BionicRasher wrote: »

The positives far outweigh the negatives of the Google Home.

Methinks he's only considering this as a speaker not all the things that Google Assistant brings, casting, home automation and device control etc

bk

Pugzilla wrote: »

Sonos has a history of great product support. They still update speakers that are over 10 years old.

The point is on third party devices Google Assistant doesn't support all the same features that it does on first party devices.

This is also true for Alexa, Alexa on the Sonos doesn't support a variety of features that you can get on Amazon devices, e.g. calling, etc.

I do hope that Google and Amazon improve their support for third party devices as Sonos is pretty nice devices and the more devices support these the better.

Having said that, if audio quality is your priority, then there are much better sounding speakers then Sonos. A Google Home Mini + Chromecast Audio connected to high quality speakers is a pretty great setup, specially if you already have those speakers.

iPhone.

Fishy1 wrote: »

RTE Radio 1 is gone again . . .

ah here, Referee!!

Just found the same myself, gone again, FFS one of the basic uses of the device, streaming a radio show and it keeps breaking, surely to god with all the Network and System Engineers these guys have at their disposal they should be able to put a consistent fix in place.

darth_maul

iPhone. wrote: »

ah here, Referee!!

Just found the same myself, gone again, FFS one of the basic uses of the device, streaming a radio show and it keeps breaking, surely to god with all the Network and System Engineers these guys have at their disposal they should be able to put a consistent fix in place.

Please vent here and we might get listened too https://productforums.google.com/forum/m/?noredirect=true#!topic/googlehome/mhLXxNoj17U

RockDesk

The high horse brigade wrote: »

Lots of us set to USA region anyway as it offers much more

I have mine set to UK. Would I lose any function if I set it to USA? For example, the news briefing when I ask "how is my day?"

The high horse brigade

RockDesk wrote: »

I have mine set to UK. Would I lose any function if I set it to USA? For example, the news briefing when I ask "how is my day?"

I still get my news from BBC UK

RockDesk

The high horse brigade wrote: »

I still get my news from BBC UK

Thank you! I'll change it to USA, I could be imagining it, but it seems to be less glitchy when set to USA (from the small amount of time I had it on that setting!)

Pugzilla

I'm still trying to decide which ecosystem is best, which is why I'm leaning towards the Sonos since it will supposedly be agnostic. While there are better speaker out there, you also have added complexity of having two plugs and leaving the external speaker on all the time. Sonos ones can be stereo paired or used in a 5.1 setup.

Playing Devil's advocate, why shouldn't I just get an echo dot which has a 3.5mm jack which will work with any speaker, whilst costing nearly the same as the chromecast audio itself? I could get two dots for the same price, giving me voice control and speaker connectivity in two rooms.

I just feel that Amazon has such a big first mover advantage, that it will be difficult for Google to compete. Google has the advantage in terms of data collection, but AWS is by far the largest cloud computing system. Alexa also has contextual speech coming out soon, similar to the Google Assistant. I also feel that 'Hey/Ok Google' wake word will really get really tiresome after a while and feels less natural compared to the Alexa wake words.

iPhone.

darth_maul wrote: »

Please vent here and we might get listened too https://productforums.google.com/forum/m/?noredirect=true#!topic/googlehome/mhLXxNoj17U

I report it to google support and feedback every time it happens, have added my tuppence worth to your link also, the more the merrier.

Pretty bad though that they can't sort this out once and for all. The way it is at the moment you could almost schedule an email to google support for every 10 days in advance, not joking!:mad:

The high horse brigade

Pugzilla wrote: »

I'm still trying to decide which ecosystem is best, which is why I'm leaning towards the Sonos since it will supposedly be agnostic.

Playing Devil's advocate, why shouldn't I just get an echo dot which has a 3.5mm jack which will work with any speaker, whilst costing nearly the same as the chromecast audio itself?

As someone who has had both, I have gone all in with Google and sold my Amazon devices. Google is a long way ahead with search and voice recognition and also can now match Amazon in every way for device and service support.

My advice would be to get a Google home mini and a Chromecast audio for your existing stereo

bk

Pugzilla wrote: »

I'm still trying to decide which ecosystem is best, which is why I'm leaning towards the Sonos since it will supposedly be agnostic. While there are better speaker out there, you also have added complexity of having two plugs and leaving the external speaker on all the time. Sonos ones can be stereo paired or used in a 5.1 setup.

The advantage is that having the GH Mini separate from the speaker is that it can be placed away from the speakers (e.g. other side of the room). I find doing this allows it to pick up the voice much easier when playing loud music. IME all these devices struggle when the mic and speaker are in the same device and it is playing loud music, you have to shout a couple of times.

The other advantage is if you already have high quality speakers sitting around, then it is much cheaper to do this then buy new Sonos. For instance, I've a fantastic pair of €500 Audio Engine 5 bookshelf speakers in my bedroom that sound amazing, far better then my friends Sonos One. Adding Chromecast Audio to them is a very easy and cheap decision. As was adding the CCA to my high end 5.1 setup in the living room.

Of course if you don't already have pre-existing speakers, then the maths is different for you.

Don't get me wrong, Sonos are very nice too and may well be the right option for you. In fact I might get some myself once GH launches on them and if it supports all the features and works well and reviews well. But I'd be cautious about buying into an expensive Sonos system before all that launches.

Pugzilla wrote: »

Playing Devil's advocate, why shouldn't I just get an echo dot which has a 3.5mm jack which will work with any speaker, whilst costing nearly the same as the chromecast audio itself? I could get two dots for the same price, giving me voice control and speaker connectivity in two rooms.

I did exactly that, I use to have a Dot connected to those Audio Engines speakers I mention above prior to GH launching. I replaced it with GH mini + CCA which turned out to be a far better experience.

I agree it is a pity that GH doesn't have 3.5mm out. It is a disadvantage. But €25 for a CCA (I paid jsut €15 for mine) shouldn't really be a major concern when your priority is sound quality and you are looking at buying expensive Sonos speakers!

BTW 3.5 Audio to external speakers using Dot has some serious issues. It can take a few seconds for external speakers to come out of sleep mode when it first detects sound coming from the dot, this can cause you to miss the first few seconds of response from the dot which is very annoying. GH's approach to this problem is much superior IMO.

Pugzilla wrote: »

I just feel that Amazon has such a big first mover advantage, that it will be difficult for Google to compete. Google has the advantage in terms of data collection, but AWS is by far the largest cloud computing system. Alexa also has contextual speech coming out soon, similar to the Google Assistant. I also feel that 'Hey/Ok Google' wake word will really get really tiresome after a while and feels less natural compared to the Alexa wake words.

I have a full size Echo and Echo Dot. They both sit in a cupboard unplugged. While Amazon definitely has first mover advantage, in my experience, their Alexa is far inferior and more buggy and frustrating then GH. It all feels very rushed, it feels like throw something together and throw it out the door unfinished.

GH certainly isn't prefect, but it feels better designed and is actually fun rather then frustrating.

jogdish

Regard RTE radio 1 today:

I complained via the chat window on the GH page, just got this now:
"
Hello

Good day!

We'd like to update you that the issue on playing RTE Radio 1 on TuneIn that was reported to us has been resolved. We're in the process of rolling out the fix. Reply to this email if you still encounter the issue.,

Let me know if you have any additional questions about this, or start a new chat with us by clicking ‘Contact Us’ on https://support.google.com/googlehome , if you prefer, and we'll be happy to help
"

Can someone confirm, im not at home.

grumpygit

nope still not working for me tried it on GH and a mini and doesn't work on either. Pain in the ass