A Few Hours With The Google Home

[EarDemon]

While I'm typically not a fan of the Internet of Things concept, I preordered the Google Home and it arrived yesterday.

Set up was a breeze, just plug it in, download the app and follow the guided instructions. It was also very simple to set it up to control my Hue set up. I was surprised that I could dictate specifically what individual lights I wanted on or off and what color I wanted them. The negative is the dictations have to be done it multiple steps. For example, I can't say 'Ok Google, turn desk light off and change ceiling light to blue' it has to be 'Ok Google, turn desk light off' and 'Ok Google, change ceiling light to blue'. But overall I'm satisfied with how well it works.

For music, I find the quality of the Speaker not so great. I've used the JamBox, Big JamBox, Beats Pill, and a Sony XB3, and with the exception of the Pill, I've never been disappointed, until now. For the streaming music it plays, it just sounds flat. I'm not sure if adjustments can be made or if it's the quality of the stream, but it's not something I would ever use, if I can't get it to sound better. The music is coming from Google Play. Spoken word sounds great though. When I tested it reading the news and sports scores it was great.

Another odd thing, it seems like Google Home cannot access my music stored on Google Music. When I say 'Ok Google, play xxxxxxx', it always comes back with, 'Sorry, I can't find that song in your playlist, but here's something similar'.

Not really sure why I bought it, the handful of people I know with the Amazon Echo all say the same thing, after a few weeks the novelty wears off and they hardly every use it. The Philips Hue, is the only other smart home thing I own, with no plans to get anything else, so in my circumstance I'm not really sure what the benefit to having the Google Home is, versus having my phone connected to my JamBox, but I'll keep it around and when I get back home, see if I can find solutions to the issues that i am having.

Anyone else have experience with the Google Home yet?

 

[navychop]

We use our Echo A LOT. I'd have bought one for the kitchen but SWMBO stopped me.

We get weather, news, a bedtime play list to go to sleep with and use it as an alarm. That's most of our use for it.

 

[dishdude]

I'm lukewarm on this thing. It integrates well with my Google account and since I use Google Music, it'll play anything I ask it. Most questions get a reasonable reply. A few people have said it looks like an air freshener.

 

[EarDemon]

After a little over a month, my Google Home is nothing more than an expensive light switch. I bought a few more Hue bulbs and run the bedroom and bathroom entirely on Hue, controlled by Google Home. Audio quality is not to my liking when streaming music, and I’ve found the playlists to be repetitive on Google Play Music and Pandora. I use Google Home to play some of the paranormal online only radio shows I listen to, or some of Leo Laporte’s stuff, which it works great for. I’ve tried Casting audio from the Chrome browser on my PC to Google Home, but then again the audio quality has a lot to be desired. I have a somewhat decent audio setup on my desktop PC and my laptop is paired to my Big Jambox. I guess part of the problem is the only place I have a desire to use a smart speaker is in the bedroom, where I spend most of my time. I have it placed in the center of my two UPS units on my desk, which is right by my PC speakers and Jambox. If I had it in the living room, or somewhere else, where I don’t have all of my crap, I guess it would be more useful.

Most of the ‘digital assistant’ type features I could do without. Don’t need any type of sports news or score information, since if I’m not watching an event I’m interested in, I get updates on my phone from the ESPN, Fox Sports, NFL, NHL, MLB, NASCAR, UFC, Bills and Sabres apps every time so much as a water boy or assistant trainer farts. Don’t need traffic updates either. Living and working in a rural area, unless the Google Assistant can inform me when a train breaks down on the set of tracks I go over, or when a goat from the farm up the road from me hops the fence again and stands in the middle of the road, then I don’t need it.

I don’t think the reminder/calendar functions work yet, but it will be a cold day in hell before I use the Outlook features that I distain on a Google platform. Seriously, if I can’t remember to pick up a bottle of Tide from WalMart or can’t remember to show up for an appointment, just kill me. I don’t need nor want that much organization in my life.

The only assistant type feature I can say I somewhat worthwhile is news, since it can be customized and it’s not based on what Google think it knows about you. Unlike the Google Now feed, which I do a search on one thing and I get a bunch of crap on my phone that I have no interest in from blogs and other nonsense from people who aren’t real journalists. I no longer keep signed into Chrome all the time for this very reason.

As much as I can’t stand Cortana on Windows 10, and have it disabled via the registry, powershell commands and GPOs, I’m looking forward to the rumored Cortana thing from Harmon. It looks like it will be a speaker first, digital dog leash second.

After doing a quick search I’ve come to find out Google Home won’t play my music because individual songs have to be a part of playlists, they just can’t be in your library. Which is stupid. I haven’t done it yet, but I’m just going to create a playlist in Google Music called ‘All Music’ and include my entire library and I’m thinking that should work. And this may be a pipe dream, but I wish instead of using my phone’s microphone for the third party Hue Disco app, it could use the Google Home. Now that would be pretty cool, I think .

 

[primetimeguy]

After a little over a month, my Google Home is nothing more than an expensive light switch. I bought a few more Hue bulbs and run the bedroom and bathroom entirely on Hue, controlled by Google Home. Audio quality is not to my liking when streaming music, and I’ve found the playlists to be repetitive on Google Play Music and Pandora. I use Google Home to play some of the paranormal online only radio shows I listen to, or some of Leo Laporte’s stuff, which it works great for. I’ve tried Casting audio from the Chrome browser on my PC to Google Home, but then again the audio quality has a lot to be desired. I have a somewhat decent audio setup on my desktop PC and my laptop is paired to my Big Jambox. I guess part of the problem is the only place I have a desire to use a smart speaker is in the bedroom, where I spend most of my time. I have it placed in the center of my two UPS units on my desk, which is right by my PC speakers and Jambox. If I had it in the living room, or somewhere else, where I don’t have all of my crap, I guess it would be more useful.

Most of the ‘digital assistant’ type features I could do without. Don’t need any type of sports news or score information, since if I’m not watching an event I’m interested in, I get updates on my phone from the ESPN, Fox Sports, NFL, NHL, MLB, NASCAR, UFC, Bills and Sabres apps every time so much as a water boy or assistant trainer farts. Don’t need traffic updates either. Living and working in a rural area, unless the Google Assistant can inform me when a train breaks down on the set of tracks I go over, or when a goat from the farm up the road from me hops the fence again and stands in the middle of the road, then I don’t need it.

I don’t think the reminder/calendar functions work yet, but it will be a cold day in hell before I use the Outlook features that I distain on a Google platform. Seriously, if I can’t remember to pick up a bottle of Tide from WalMart or can’t remember to show up for an appointment, just kill me. I don’t need nor want that much organization in my life.

The only assistant type feature I can say I somewhat worthwhile is news, since it can be customized and it’s not based on what Google think it knows about you. Unlike the Google Now feed, which I do a search on one thing and I get a bunch of crap on my phone that I have no interest in from blogs and other nonsense from people who aren’t real journalists. I no longer keep signed into Chrome all the time for this very reason.

As much as I can’t stand Cortana on Windows 10, and have it disabled via the registry, powershell commands and GPOs, I’m looking forward to the rumored Cortana thing from Harmon. It looks like it will be a speaker first, digital dog leash second.

After doing a quick search I’ve come to find out Google Home won’t play my music because individual songs have to be a part of playlists, they just can’t be in your library. Which is stupid. I haven’t done it yet, but I’m just going to create a playlist in Google Music called ‘All Music’ and include my entire library and I’m thinking that should work. And this may be a pipe dream, but I wish instead of using my phone’s microphone for the third party Hue Disco app, it could use the Google Home. Now that would be pretty cool, I think .

Home will play any song in Google play music service. It will not play your own songs you have uploaded to your library.

I don't spend a lot of time with the device anymore. Kids love it for music. Everyone likes the shopping list feature as anyone can add to the list and it's always on my phone and my wife's.

 

[EarDemon]

According to Google it will, but like I said it must be part of a playlist. I haven't tried it so I don't know for sure.

• Currently, you can't directly play uploaded or purchased Google Play Music content on Google Home. However, you can add your uploaded and purchased content to a playlist and play that playlist using the "Hey Google, play <name> playlist" voice command.

https://support.google.com/googlehome/answer/7030379?hl=en

 

[Jimbo]

While I'm typically not a fan of the Internet of Things concept, I preordered the Google Home and it arrived yesterday.

Set up was a breeze, just plug it in, download the app and follow the guided instructions. It was also very simple to set it up to control my Hue set up. I was surprised that I could dictate specifically what individual lights I wanted on or off and what color I wanted them. The negative is the dictations have to be done it multiple steps. For example, I can't say 'Ok Google, turn desk light off and change ceiling light to blue' it has to be 'Ok Google, turn desk light off' and 'Ok Google, change ceiling light to blue'. But overall I'm satisfied with how well it works.

For music, I find the quality of the Speaker not so great. I've used the JamBox, Big JamBox, Beats Pill, and a Sony XB3, and with the exception of the Pill, I've never been disappointed, until now. For the streaming music it plays, it just sounds flat. I'm not sure if adjustments can be made or if it's the quality of the stream, but it's not something I would ever use, if I can't get it to sound better. The music is coming from Google Play. Spoken word sounds great though. When I tested it reading the news and sports scores it was great.

Another odd thing, it seems like Google Home cannot access my music stored on Google Music. When I say 'Ok Google, play xxxxxxx', it always comes back with, 'Sorry, I can't find that song in your playlist, but here's something similar'.

Not really sure why I bought it, the handful of people I know with the Amazon Echo all say the same thing, after a few weeks the novelty wears off and they hardly every use it. The Philips Hue, is the only other smart home thing I own, with no plans to get anything else, so in my circumstance I'm not really sure what the benefit to having the Google Home is, versus having my phone connected to my JamBox, but I'll keep it around and when I get back home, see if I can find solutions to the issues that i am having.

Anyone else have experience with the Google Home yet?

If your looking for streaming music, try Sonos.
That should sound much better.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Love my Sonos Play 3!


Sent from my iPhone using the SatelliteGuys app!

 

[primetimeguy]

According to Google it will, but like I said it must be part of a playlist. I haven't tried it so I don't know for sure.

• Currently, you can't directly play uploaded or purchased Google Play Music content on Google Home. However, you can add your uploaded and purchased content to a playlist and play that playlist using the "Hey Google, play <name> playlist" voice command.

https://support.google.com/googlehome/answer/7030379?hl=en

Thanks for that, good find and I can confirm it works! Thanks again!

 

[EarDemon]

No problem, glad it worked! I saw your post yesterday, and quickly tried it as well.

I looked at the Sonos before, but decided to go with the bluetooth speakers I mentioned above for durability reasons. I have my phone paired to the Big Jambox and blast it when I'm doing yard work, cleaning my car or shoveling snow. To me, the Sonos products are something I would not take out of the house. My Jambox has been dropped on the driveway, rained on and took a few spills in the grass and mulch and doesn't have more then a couple scuffs on it. I'd easily pay twice the price for a Google Home if it was powered by a real speaker from a company like Klipsch, JBL or Harman Kardon. The Hue integration is the best part for me. I've had Hue lights since they first came out, but never did much with them, since it required being connected to a phone, and honestly quite often, my phone stays in my car once I get home from work.

Google is adding support to Home for Android based Sony Smart TVs. In about a year from now, I'm planning on going 4K, and Sony is my brand, and I will only get one with Android, since I'm sick and tired of dealing with proprietary platforms that are orphaned prior to that model going EOL.

This is the Microsoft speaker from Harman. If it has Hue support, I'll probably get one.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/harmankardon-readies-a-cortana-powered-speaker/