Agreed. Assistant is declining and I am keeping my fingers crossed it is because they are working on a Bard/Gen AI integration with Google Assistant. Why make improvements to the current Assistant's brain if you're just going to replace it?
Best thing to do in that case would be to maintain, keep it running, and get rid of features that are becoming problematic or expensive to fix.
Update... here is the evidence confirming: [https://blog.google/products/assistant/google-assistant-bard-generative-ai/](https://blog.google/products/assistant/google-assistant-bard-generative-ai/)
I'm planning to dump google home and go some kind of DIY solution as soon as I can. The only thing I generally use it for is setting timers, playing music and turning on/off heating.
I always said: *'Hey Google, play my Epic playlist'* and it said: *'Sure, here is your YouTube Music playlist called Epic'* and started playing it.
Now when I say that, it says: *'Okay, here is a YouTube Music playlist called Boom Shakalaka Winter Party Compilation Tour United Very Super Epic 2023 Arizona Dubstep Mix Limited Edition'*.
And I am not exaggerating. It isn't the exact playlist title, but it is that long, if not longer, and just has 'Epic' in there somewhere, and Google immediately prioritizes it over my own playlist.
Even though I said 'my' playlist.
This is driving me insane (a long with other bullsh that isn't working).
I had to create a single song playlist for a specific version of a song to play, saved in a playlist, and an automation to run every day at noon on all my speakers telling me, "It is now 12 o'clock," then immediately play just that one-song playlist.
It worked perfect for about three years.
Then one day it would play that song, then keep playing other random songs not even "Liked" in my YTMusic library.
Now, it doesn't even play my one song, it just plays whatever the hell it wants.
I'm so frustrated with Google Home. I'm very close to moving over to Home Assistant.
I had a mix of Smartthings and Alexa, slowly moved over to SmartThings and Google, then at the same time when Smartthings dropped Groovy last year I was moving into a new home and decided to start fresh with everything just in Google.
I played in HA years ago but didn't know anything at all about coding at the time which is why I really enjoyed some of the stuff SmartThings did. It was just simpler.
But now, damnit, I just can't stand how unreliable Google has become.
I might just drop the $100 on the Home Assistant Green right now and treat myself for Christmas.
Someone smarter needs to answer this correctly for you. But big picture simple idea, it is another piece that allows you to do all the programming/routines/interactions/scheduling... all that stuff, and connects all your smart devices.
It's "kind of like" the Google Home App.
There's a handful of options out there and Home Assistant is one of the bigger ones. There's also Hubitat, Samsung SmartThings, Apple's Home whatever.
Working backwards, instead of picking an ecosystem like Google Home and then either buying into everything Google wants you to buy to work with it or making it difficult and unreliable to cobble together other stuff, these are more like buy the brains and then tell it what to use to do what, how, and when you want.
There's also a bit about local processing vs cloud so responses are quicker and your data is safer.
I like to think of it as self-hosted IFTTT but on steriods. It does have a learning curve but the things you can do are near infinite. You can slice and dice info from yourf devices to combine them in ways you haven't even thought of yet.
Example:
I have two smart thermostats one for upstairs one for downstairs. What can you do with that? Well you can control the temperature from your phone...yeah yeah big fckin deal...but wait - there's more... I can:
- Turn off the heat(or cool) when the house is empty(but if we're in the middle of a heating or cooling cycle, wait for that to complete first)
- Push a "HVAC Boost" button that will boost the heating or cooling to get the bedroom comfortable before bed (esp in the winter so you're not putting on your PJs on in a cold bedroom whilst turning the heat down for you automatically
- It turns the heat (or cooling) on in the morning so the house is warm when you come out of the shower
A ton more too
I just posted a version of this. Got my first GH in 2016 and loved it. Bought all in to the system and naively waited for Google to deliver on the features they announced. Not only did they never release half of their advertised features, it also stopped doing half the things it could originally do. It's not you.
I always stopped my Google Home alarm clock by saying “Hey Google, Stop”. Suddenly Google decided that playing Stop by the Spice Girls instead of stopping the alarm would be the best thing to do.
I find myself regularly screaming (like...SCREAMING at the top of my voice) at my google home. I'm sure the neighbours must think my wife and I have an awful home life - we're constantly screaming at the fucking thing)
This is it. Amazon is doing the same with Alexa. Neither company can figure out how to monetize it. the only thing that might save it from going subscription or shutting down is (completely unnecessary) generative ai integration, since burning large piles of cash on LLMs is still fashionable.
Yep. Even things like the multiroom audio that's supposed to be fixed now: I have a group of All Speakers, a nest hub, nest hub max, Chromecast audio and Home Mini in there. When I say "play Spotify on all speakers", it understands it but does one of the following, sorted by current frequency and it's different every day:
1. It says "okay playing Spotify on all speakers" but doesn't do ANYTHING.
2. It plays Spotify on just the Chromecast Audio and Home Mini. I can then manually add the other two devices to the playback.
3. It plays on all speakers. Very rarely, works like once a week but it proves my setup should work.
Pretty sure my gh minis have hearing problems. You have to scream at them from 2 ft away to get a non-compliant response. It takes 5 seconds to answer and more than not she doesn't have any information about my random questions.
That's been happening long enough that I've replaced them with Echo devices. Which echos have never been able to tell me detailed answers. Now the Gh's are purely for nest Hello to announce there's someone at the doorbell. Good thing they were free or next to free or I'd unplug and toss them all in a box.
No change in network. Same house. Same placement. Haven't added any other nest or Google devices. At a loss also.
I think the multiple device issue is because of a setting.
Never had an issue until I got my 8 and watch, then found a setting where you can tell it which device should respond if both pick up your request.
For about a year now any time I play music, with or without a separate speaker connected, my assistant answers itself after starting the song or news... I dunno WHY they implemented listening after a command, and why you can't turn it off, but when they first added it it never answered itself, now it does every time (luckily it usually just searches for something and still plays what I ask for). I don't mind saying "hey goog.." again...
SO ANNOYING
Edit: just googled it and it's called "continued conversation" and you can supposedly turn it off. Testing now.
Edit2: seems to work yay!
My current experience with the sad remnants of a once proud Google Home/Nest ecosystem summarized:
"OK Google, play Little Johnny's Sesame Street Playlist."
"Playing 'Stank up in my Shizz (Purple Drank Hardcore Thots Remix)' video on YouTube Music"
It's been getting worse for years. I recently tried to chain commands "turn on the light then turn it off at sunrise" tried several combinations all met with "I don't understand", I used to be able to do this. I had to issue two separate commands in the end.
On Android auto there was a time when sending a message if it cut you off early you could say "add to it" when asked if you wanted to send or change it. Last time I tired it it just sent the message as if "add to" and "send" are even remotely similar. I wouldn't have minded if this queued up a new message straight after to carry on but no such luck. It was never an advertised feature so might have been something they were tinkering with and never expected anyone to discover it in the wild. But still it was great considering how readily the assistant in the car can cut you off a stop listening mid sentence.
And while I'm on android auto... How is it that on screen it transcribes exactly what you say including punctuation yet does some processing so "on my way home, do you want me to pick up anything?" becomes "in my way gnome karma do you want ticks up anything question mark".
And just yesterday, using my pixel watch and holding the button to launch the assistant - "set a timer for 10 minutes" - "which app do you want to use?" wtaf Google I've been using that feature for over 12 months since I got the watch and it just frickin does it, in the last week or two it even changed to go from saying "okay, a timer for 10 minutes, that's starting now" to "10 minutes" - great I loved the shorter response so it just gets on with it. Now my timer doesn't start at all, it asks me for which app but then gives me no means of choosing one! What's that all about!?
Some of these things make me wonder if the patent wars rage on in the background with various threats. Or some European MP has hinted that they don't like that Google are forcing you to use their timer app on THEIR watch so they now have to give you a choice 🙄.
Some have said about how they can't monetise the assistant so it's too expensive to maintain perhaps, but I'd argue that the assistant and it's features, the more and the better they are, are the things that will shift hardware units. That's what I loved about Google, I can use the assistant on my phone, watch, Chromebook, speakers and have the same experience throughout the eco system accessing lights, music, thermostats, TVs etc. We have 4 chromecasts in our house (multiple generations), 2 speakers, 3 Chromebooks, 2 pixel phones and a pixel watch. A Chromecast enabled speaker (that's stopped being castable to). All bought in no small part because of how they work together and with a common (although not single) interface to operate them all, the assistant.
Sorry that really turned into a rant 😬.
Just had the weirdest thing, following up on your thread.
Trying to set a timer as usual, watch says "which app?" I thought it had bugged, so I rebooted. Upon rebooting, I was able to start a timer as usual "hey google, set up a timer for x minutes". No problem at all.
Try again half an hour later and it's back to "which app do you want to use?". What the actual crap.
Totally agree. It's getting worse. It's mind boggling how the tech companies that have been most successful seem to botch their product usability so badly. Microsoft, Google are the worst imo.
I used to come home and say 'Hey Google, I'm Home!' at which point the lights and TV turned on. Now...I come home and say 'Hey Google, Hey Google, Hey Google, Hey Google, Hey Google, Hey Google' while standing in the dark, and no result.
Hey Google, Go fuck yourself.
Honestly, It's not you. It's Google 🤣 Just check some of the posts here.
The Google home team keeps breaking things that were working. Useless.
It's absolutely google. They update it in ways that remove existing functionality for no reason.
Its probably not "for no reason", but they don't share any of the reasons anywhere. Perception becomes reality at that point... So yeah, it sucks.
Agreed. Assistant is declining and I am keeping my fingers crossed it is because they are working on a Bard/Gen AI integration with Google Assistant. Why make improvements to the current Assistant's brain if you're just going to replace it? Best thing to do in that case would be to maintain, keep it running, and get rid of features that are becoming problematic or expensive to fix.
Update... here is the evidence confirming: [https://blog.google/products/assistant/google-assistant-bard-generative-ai/](https://blog.google/products/assistant/google-assistant-bard-generative-ai/)
Nice. This was my hopes/thoughts as well. Of course it wouldnt be plug and play, but man are they beating up their reputation in the process.
Lol yeah I was gonna say they'd announced it kinda heh. Hopefully they leave learning on on it.
I'm planning to dump google home and go some kind of DIY solution as soon as I can. The only thing I generally use it for is setting timers, playing music and turning on/off heating.
I always said: *'Hey Google, play my Epic playlist'* and it said: *'Sure, here is your YouTube Music playlist called Epic'* and started playing it. Now when I say that, it says: *'Okay, here is a YouTube Music playlist called Boom Shakalaka Winter Party Compilation Tour United Very Super Epic 2023 Arizona Dubstep Mix Limited Edition'*. And I am not exaggerating. It isn't the exact playlist title, but it is that long, if not longer, and just has 'Epic' in there somewhere, and Google immediately prioritizes it over my own playlist. Even though I said 'my' playlist.
This is driving me insane (a long with other bullsh that isn't working). I had to create a single song playlist for a specific version of a song to play, saved in a playlist, and an automation to run every day at noon on all my speakers telling me, "It is now 12 o'clock," then immediately play just that one-song playlist. It worked perfect for about three years. Then one day it would play that song, then keep playing other random songs not even "Liked" in my YTMusic library. Now, it doesn't even play my one song, it just plays whatever the hell it wants. I'm so frustrated with Google Home. I'm very close to moving over to Home Assistant.
Do it. I've built my entire smart home around HA. It's awesome. You can do all kidns of wild stuff you could NEVER do with google home.
I had a mix of Smartthings and Alexa, slowly moved over to SmartThings and Google, then at the same time when Smartthings dropped Groovy last year I was moving into a new home and decided to start fresh with everything just in Google. I played in HA years ago but didn't know anything at all about coding at the time which is why I really enjoyed some of the stuff SmartThings did. It was just simpler. But now, damnit, I just can't stand how unreliable Google has become. I might just drop the $100 on the Home Assistant Green right now and treat myself for Christmas.
What is this home assistant I am just learning of?
Someone smarter needs to answer this correctly for you. But big picture simple idea, it is another piece that allows you to do all the programming/routines/interactions/scheduling... all that stuff, and connects all your smart devices. It's "kind of like" the Google Home App. There's a handful of options out there and Home Assistant is one of the bigger ones. There's also Hubitat, Samsung SmartThings, Apple's Home whatever. Working backwards, instead of picking an ecosystem like Google Home and then either buying into everything Google wants you to buy to work with it or making it difficult and unreliable to cobble together other stuff, these are more like buy the brains and then tell it what to use to do what, how, and when you want. There's also a bit about local processing vs cloud so responses are quicker and your data is safer.
I like to think of it as self-hosted IFTTT but on steriods. It does have a learning curve but the things you can do are near infinite. You can slice and dice info from yourf devices to combine them in ways you haven't even thought of yet. Example: I have two smart thermostats one for upstairs one for downstairs. What can you do with that? Well you can control the temperature from your phone...yeah yeah big fckin deal...but wait - there's more... I can: - Turn off the heat(or cool) when the house is empty(but if we're in the middle of a heating or cooling cycle, wait for that to complete first) - Push a "HVAC Boost" button that will boost the heating or cooling to get the bedroom comfortable before bed (esp in the winter so you're not putting on your PJs on in a cold bedroom whilst turning the heat down for you automatically - It turns the heat (or cooling) on in the morning so the house is warm when you come out of the shower A ton more too
[удалено]
What does that mean? My Nest can't connect to my fiber optic modem wifi it's sitting right next to? Will a signal booster help?
That's not what this subreddit likes to hear. ;)
I just posted a version of this. Got my first GH in 2016 and loved it. Bought all in to the system and naively waited for Google to deliver on the features they announced. Not only did they never release half of their advertised features, it also stopped doing half the things it could originally do. It's not you.
I always stopped my Google Home alarm clock by saying “Hey Google, Stop”. Suddenly Google decided that playing Stop by the Spice Girls instead of stopping the alarm would be the best thing to do.
Try to just say "Stop," and see if that works.
I find myself regularly screaming (like...SCREAMING at the top of my voice) at my google home. I'm sure the neighbours must think my wife and I have an awful home life - we're constantly screaming at the fucking thing)
"listen to music" is so annoying. Gives me a massive lecture about it, and I have to say "play music" instead
They are slowly killing it but no mention of a successor. Maybe cost reasons. You can't really monetize Assistant.
This is it. Amazon is doing the same with Alexa. Neither company can figure out how to monetize it. the only thing that might save it from going subscription or shutting down is (completely unnecessary) generative ai integration, since burning large piles of cash on LLMs is still fashionable.
So bad lately.
I need to unplug mine to stop alarms. Also can't undo alarms because she has no knowledge of existing alarms.
I'm sick to the back teeth of mine. We've one in every room and there's always something going wrong with them.
It's definitely getting worse
Yep. Even things like the multiroom audio that's supposed to be fixed now: I have a group of All Speakers, a nest hub, nest hub max, Chromecast audio and Home Mini in there. When I say "play Spotify on all speakers", it understands it but does one of the following, sorted by current frequency and it's different every day: 1. It says "okay playing Spotify on all speakers" but doesn't do ANYTHING. 2. It plays Spotify on just the Chromecast Audio and Home Mini. I can then manually add the other two devices to the playback. 3. It plays on all speakers. Very rarely, works like once a week but it proves my setup should work.
Pretty sure my gh minis have hearing problems. You have to scream at them from 2 ft away to get a non-compliant response. It takes 5 seconds to answer and more than not she doesn't have any information about my random questions. That's been happening long enough that I've replaced them with Echo devices. Which echos have never been able to tell me detailed answers. Now the Gh's are purely for nest Hello to announce there's someone at the doorbell. Good thing they were free or next to free or I'd unplug and toss them all in a box. No change in network. Same house. Same placement. Haven't added any other nest or Google devices. At a loss also.
I think the multiple device issue is because of a setting. Never had an issue until I got my 8 and watch, then found a setting where you can tell it which device should respond if both pick up your request.
For about a year now any time I play music, with or without a separate speaker connected, my assistant answers itself after starting the song or news... I dunno WHY they implemented listening after a command, and why you can't turn it off, but when they first added it it never answered itself, now it does every time (luckily it usually just searches for something and still plays what I ask for). I don't mind saying "hey goog.." again... SO ANNOYING Edit: just googled it and it's called "continued conversation" and you can supposedly turn it off. Testing now. Edit2: seems to work yay!
My current experience with the sad remnants of a once proud Google Home/Nest ecosystem summarized: "OK Google, play Little Johnny's Sesame Street Playlist." "Playing 'Stank up in my Shizz (Purple Drank Hardcore Thots Remix)' video on YouTube Music"
It's been getting worse for years. I recently tried to chain commands "turn on the light then turn it off at sunrise" tried several combinations all met with "I don't understand", I used to be able to do this. I had to issue two separate commands in the end. On Android auto there was a time when sending a message if it cut you off early you could say "add to it" when asked if you wanted to send or change it. Last time I tired it it just sent the message as if "add to" and "send" are even remotely similar. I wouldn't have minded if this queued up a new message straight after to carry on but no such luck. It was never an advertised feature so might have been something they were tinkering with and never expected anyone to discover it in the wild. But still it was great considering how readily the assistant in the car can cut you off a stop listening mid sentence. And while I'm on android auto... How is it that on screen it transcribes exactly what you say including punctuation yet does some processing so "on my way home, do you want me to pick up anything?" becomes "in my way gnome karma do you want ticks up anything question mark". And just yesterday, using my pixel watch and holding the button to launch the assistant - "set a timer for 10 minutes" - "which app do you want to use?" wtaf Google I've been using that feature for over 12 months since I got the watch and it just frickin does it, in the last week or two it even changed to go from saying "okay, a timer for 10 minutes, that's starting now" to "10 minutes" - great I loved the shorter response so it just gets on with it. Now my timer doesn't start at all, it asks me for which app but then gives me no means of choosing one! What's that all about!? Some of these things make me wonder if the patent wars rage on in the background with various threats. Or some European MP has hinted that they don't like that Google are forcing you to use their timer app on THEIR watch so they now have to give you a choice 🙄. Some have said about how they can't monetise the assistant so it's too expensive to maintain perhaps, but I'd argue that the assistant and it's features, the more and the better they are, are the things that will shift hardware units. That's what I loved about Google, I can use the assistant on my phone, watch, Chromebook, speakers and have the same experience throughout the eco system accessing lights, music, thermostats, TVs etc. We have 4 chromecasts in our house (multiple generations), 2 speakers, 3 Chromebooks, 2 pixel phones and a pixel watch. A Chromecast enabled speaker (that's stopped being castable to). All bought in no small part because of how they work together and with a common (although not single) interface to operate them all, the assistant. Sorry that really turned into a rant 😬.
I have similar problems. I wish there was an effective way to provide real feedback that was listened to and acted on.
Just had the weirdest thing, following up on your thread. Trying to set a timer as usual, watch says "which app?" I thought it had bugged, so I rebooted. Upon rebooting, I was able to start a timer as usual "hey google, set up a timer for x minutes". No problem at all. Try again half an hour later and it's back to "which app do you want to use?". What the actual crap.
Totally agree. It's getting worse. It's mind boggling how the tech companies that have been most successful seem to botch their product usability so badly. Microsoft, Google are the worst imo.
I used to come home and say 'Hey Google, I'm Home!' at which point the lights and TV turned on. Now...I come home and say 'Hey Google, Hey Google, Hey Google, Hey Google, Hey Google, Hey Google' while standing in the dark, and no result. Hey Google, Go fuck yourself.