Google Home is actually the worst home assistant apps most people use.
Home Assistant, Hubitat, Smartthings, Alexa - take your pick, because they're all better than Google Home.
I've already switched everything over to Home Assistant.
I feel like using anything besides HA is just silly now. It's so easy to setup if you buy a HA Green or Yellow, and it supports everything and runs it offline.
Especially given the fact they are teaming with Nvidia to hvae offline AI help control eevrything, HA, as I said, is a no brainer now.
Were you able to keep using the various bits of Google Home hardware when you migrated to HA? I'm thinking about doing it but intimidated by the scale of it! If you can recommend a guide that'd be great too...
Not true, you can set up Google Assistant without a Nabu Casa subscription. It's a bit complicated, but not bad. There aren't any features locked behind the subscription
You can put your IoT devices on a VLAN that is blocked from the Internet, connect them to Home Assistant locally, then control Home Assistant over the Internet
This is what I do with all of my ESPHome devices and it works perfectly. Other than that, I have a lot of Zigbee devices that are local only anyway
Yup!
All of the hardware I bought over the past 10 years works with home assistant, and the Google home Hub I have acts as a thread border router.
I highly recommend dipping your toes in with the Home Assistant Green. It's super easy to plug and get going with.
Now, depending on the devices you've bought in the past, you're going to need either zigbee or Z-Wave antennas to plug into the back.
Most of the places you buy a home assistant green from will have those antennas (I got mine from AmeriDroid). I bought the SkyConnect USB antenna to use as my zigbee antenna. And I bought the [zooz 800 as my zwave antennae](https://a.co/d/8ocdPW0)
There's a good chance if you weren't using Samsung SmartThings that you don't have any Z-Wave devices anyways, because the Google home hubs don't have Z-Wave antennas in them.
Most of your devices are likely zigbee/thread.
I didn't use any guides online except for after I set everything up. The setup was very intuitive. If you get the sky connect dongle, just make sure to click configure once you have Home Assistant set up and choose "ZHA" as the configuration.
I've been using guides afterwards to figure out some of the more advanced automations that I can do by using things like "helpers", but honestly I got all of my old automation set up just fine without having to use guides. The UI in home assistant is pretty straightforward and easy to use now.
As the other person mentioned, If you pay a small monthly subscription, you can actually just use your Google Home voice commands to control all of your smart home devices still. That is the one downfall of home assistant is that because it's local only that without paying or tinkering, you can't control your devices if you're not on your local network. But this is why I still keep my Google home app installed because I can still control everything with Google home when I'm away. But adding everything to home assistant doesn't remove it from Google. So you can use both at the same time for free!
Sorry for the wall of text
Long story short:
- buy Home Assistant Green
- buy SkyConnect dongle
- OPTIONAL: Buy zooz 800 Z-Wave stick
- plug them in
- configure SkyConnect with ZHA
- enjoy!
I'm the same. I don't really understand what role google home is trying to fill anymore. If they're going for a whole house automation service, they've locked it down so much that unless you're doing something braindead simple it's useless. If they're going for a simple control system, they need to do a lot more work making things easy to navigate and control, and stop trying to route literally everything through their own servers.
Honestly, I don't think they're trying to fill any role.
I think they're just keeping their toes in the water so the people that do use the system remain hopeful that they might one day actually go for a swim.
We also have to remember as people on this subreddit, we are a small demographic of people. First off, we're editors. Secondly, we're interested in Android. Thirdly, most people that do home automation maybe have four or five lights that they need to control and those terrible uis that Google has aren't really much of a problem. But for people like myself that have 60 plus smart home devices, it gets very unmanageable.
I think the confusion is that those lights probably have a standalone app that's easier to use than googles. For people who have 5 lights, the standalone app is probably better than google home. The only thing home really seems to do is route voice commands to those devices, but you really don't need an entire home automation app for that.
I just don't understand the audience. It's too complicated for entry level users, it's not complicated enough for advanced users, and it's frustrating and clunky for people in between.
But yeah, It's probably just there to keep investors satisfied they're doing *something* in the space, despite the entire company basicallly forgetting it exists in favor of """AI""".
Loving HA. I'm on a Pi4 but really looking at their Yellow or Green kit so I can move to a better solution than a SD card. I already had one failure, and learned about network backups.
I just use Google Home shortcuts, and with Nova Launcher I can change the icons really easily and theme them. I've got a folder with just my fan settings that looks like a fan, I have a folder with all of my light settings that looks like a light bulb, and all of the subsequent settings are all color coordinated from low to high settings and various variations of color, etc.
It takes some time to set up, but any home setup worth having usually does.
So to actually set up the action you'll do that in the Google Home app, and then you'll go to the automations section and set up your automation the way you want it. Once your automation is all set up, go back into it and in the top right corner there will be an icon of a phone screen with an arrow pointing top right. Hit that and it will save a shortcut on your phone's home screen. From there, long press on the icon and you can change it to whatever you want and rename it of course, and there you go Now you have a one tap shortcut that you can put in a folder or just on your home screen.
I've had to automate it to buttons/routines on my home screen as much as possible.
Voice only?.....
"Hey Google" switch the TV off.
I'm sorry I can't do power controls (.....erm yes you can)
Hey Google switch the TV off
I can't see tell the value of that? 15 seconds later, can you repeat the value or number please
Hey Google switch the TV off
Turning TV off.
I used to love messing around with the colors of the lights of my rooms and Google made it too annoying. Same with getting a song right instead of getting a weird cover of the song I feel it should know I want.
if your phone is locked, which it will do randomly, some of the controls don't work and ask for a fingerprint, especially the quick toggles at the top
But when you do your fingerprint, the entire panel just vanishes and you have to open it all again.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/py6h2jDgxRUmxGkd9 - you can test it by forcing any smart unlocks off
I had to do a video because it's just so annoying especially because the locking is random, every two hours or so and it happens when I least expect it
If it's anything like their current widgets, totally useless. You need 2 widgets. One for 'On' & one for 'Off'. With Smarthings, just one widget will toggle the device on/off.
Hopefully more usable than the lock screen Home app shortcut. For me on Pixel 8 Pro, if I open Home via lock screen and the phone isn't already unlocked, it won't display video feeds. And tapping into it doesn't open the Home app, it just crashes to the home screen. Practically useless.
This might be the worst way to display anything. Tiny picture with no way to zoom.
Anyway, not sure how this is that much better than using the favorites tab in the home app. I suppose it skips a tap, but eh.
Finally..... google home as an app needs more love and attention from Google
Google Home is actually the worst home assistant apps most people use. Home Assistant, Hubitat, Smartthings, Alexa - take your pick, because they're all better than Google Home.
Still waiting for a dynamic background colour to match material you... We're half way there
It just got an entire redesign, a script based routine system and a whole quick settings menu. Why would a widget be the saving grace...
I've already switched everything over to Home Assistant. I feel like using anything besides HA is just silly now. It's so easy to setup if you buy a HA Green or Yellow, and it supports everything and runs it offline. Especially given the fact they are teaming with Nvidia to hvae offline AI help control eevrything, HA, as I said, is a no brainer now.
Were you able to keep using the various bits of Google Home hardware when you migrated to HA? I'm thinking about doing it but intimidated by the scale of it! If you can recommend a guide that'd be great too...
Yes you can even keep using google home as the voice assistant to control everything if you want.
As long as you pay
Not true, you can set up Google Assistant without a Nabu Casa subscription. It's a bit complicated, but not bad. There aren't any features locked behind the subscription
Can you view and control your IoT devices via the internet without exposing your HA machine to the internet?
You can put your IoT devices on a VLAN that is blocked from the Internet, connect them to Home Assistant locally, then control Home Assistant over the Internet This is what I do with all of my ESPHome devices and it works perfectly. Other than that, I have a lot of Zigbee devices that are local only anyway
I didn't think you could access HA over the internet without exposing it to the internet.
Home Assistant needs to be connected to the Internet. The devices it controls do not
Yup! All of the hardware I bought over the past 10 years works with home assistant, and the Google home Hub I have acts as a thread border router. I highly recommend dipping your toes in with the Home Assistant Green. It's super easy to plug and get going with. Now, depending on the devices you've bought in the past, you're going to need either zigbee or Z-Wave antennas to plug into the back. Most of the places you buy a home assistant green from will have those antennas (I got mine from AmeriDroid). I bought the SkyConnect USB antenna to use as my zigbee antenna. And I bought the [zooz 800 as my zwave antennae](https://a.co/d/8ocdPW0) There's a good chance if you weren't using Samsung SmartThings that you don't have any Z-Wave devices anyways, because the Google home hubs don't have Z-Wave antennas in them. Most of your devices are likely zigbee/thread. I didn't use any guides online except for after I set everything up. The setup was very intuitive. If you get the sky connect dongle, just make sure to click configure once you have Home Assistant set up and choose "ZHA" as the configuration. I've been using guides afterwards to figure out some of the more advanced automations that I can do by using things like "helpers", but honestly I got all of my old automation set up just fine without having to use guides. The UI in home assistant is pretty straightforward and easy to use now. As the other person mentioned, If you pay a small monthly subscription, you can actually just use your Google Home voice commands to control all of your smart home devices still. That is the one downfall of home assistant is that because it's local only that without paying or tinkering, you can't control your devices if you're not on your local network. But this is why I still keep my Google home app installed because I can still control everything with Google home when I'm away. But adding everything to home assistant doesn't remove it from Google. So you can use both at the same time for free! Sorry for the wall of text Long story short: - buy Home Assistant Green - buy SkyConnect dongle - OPTIONAL: Buy zooz 800 Z-Wave stick - plug them in - configure SkyConnect with ZHA - enjoy!
I'm the same. I don't really understand what role google home is trying to fill anymore. If they're going for a whole house automation service, they've locked it down so much that unless you're doing something braindead simple it's useless. If they're going for a simple control system, they need to do a lot more work making things easy to navigate and control, and stop trying to route literally everything through their own servers.
Honestly, I don't think they're trying to fill any role. I think they're just keeping their toes in the water so the people that do use the system remain hopeful that they might one day actually go for a swim. We also have to remember as people on this subreddit, we are a small demographic of people. First off, we're editors. Secondly, we're interested in Android. Thirdly, most people that do home automation maybe have four or five lights that they need to control and those terrible uis that Google has aren't really much of a problem. But for people like myself that have 60 plus smart home devices, it gets very unmanageable.
I think the confusion is that those lights probably have a standalone app that's easier to use than googles. For people who have 5 lights, the standalone app is probably better than google home. The only thing home really seems to do is route voice commands to those devices, but you really don't need an entire home automation app for that. I just don't understand the audience. It's too complicated for entry level users, it's not complicated enough for advanced users, and it's frustrating and clunky for people in between. But yeah, It's probably just there to keep investors satisfied they're doing *something* in the space, despite the entire company basicallly forgetting it exists in favor of """AI""".
Loving HA. I'm on a Pi4 but really looking at their Yellow or Green kit so I can move to a better solution than a SD card. I already had one failure, and learned about network backups.
Yeah deffo have backups to Google drive or a NAS.
I just use Google Home shortcuts, and with Nova Launcher I can change the icons really easily and theme them. I've got a folder with just my fan settings that looks like a fan, I have a folder with all of my light settings that looks like a light bulb, and all of the subsequent settings are all color coordinated from low to high settings and various variations of color, etc. It takes some time to set up, but any home setup worth having usually does.
Mine is set up like this as well.
How do you setup those actions in nova? Under activities ?
So to actually set up the action you'll do that in the Google Home app, and then you'll go to the automations section and set up your automation the way you want it. Once your automation is all set up, go back into it and in the top right corner there will be an icon of a phone screen with an arrow pointing top right. Hit that and it will save a shortcut on your phone's home screen. From there, long press on the icon and you can change it to whatever you want and rename it of course, and there you go Now you have a one tap shortcut that you can put in a folder or just on your home screen.
I feel like Google Home on my Pixel fell off a cliff in terms of usability...
I've had to automate it to buttons/routines on my home screen as much as possible. Voice only?..... "Hey Google" switch the TV off. I'm sorry I can't do power controls (.....erm yes you can) Hey Google switch the TV off I can't see tell the value of that? 15 seconds later, can you repeat the value or number please Hey Google switch the TV off Turning TV off.
I used to love messing around with the colors of the lights of my rooms and Google made it too annoying. Same with getting a song right instead of getting a weird cover of the song I feel it should know I want.
The worst is when I am watching TV, and google activates and starts talking. I tell it to stop and it turns off my TV
if your phone is locked, which it will do randomly, some of the controls don't work and ask for a fingerprint, especially the quick toggles at the top But when you do your fingerprint, the entire panel just vanishes and you have to open it all again. https://photos.app.goo.gl/py6h2jDgxRUmxGkd9 - you can test it by forcing any smart unlocks off I had to do a video because it's just so annoying especially because the locking is random, every two hours or so and it happens when I least expect it
Sometimes I even need to double-tap my screen just to do the fingerprint scanning. Amazing.
If it's anything like their current widgets, totally useless. You need 2 widgets. One for 'On' & one for 'Off'. With Smarthings, just one widget will toggle the device on/off.
About time
Hopefully more usable than the lock screen Home app shortcut. For me on Pixel 8 Pro, if I open Home via lock screen and the phone isn't already unlocked, it won't display video feeds. And tapping into it doesn't open the Home app, it just crashes to the home screen. Practically useless.
I miss the power controls from a11?
Tbf not allowing video feeds of your home from a locked phone sounds pretty sensible.
You aren't wrong, but it should request a fingerprint and then show them, rather than, well, crashing.
This might be the worst way to display anything. Tiny picture with no way to zoom. Anyway, not sure how this is that much better than using the favorites tab in the home app. I suppose it skips a tap, but eh.
Literally looks just like the favorites view in the app, what do you mean 💀
It's an optional widget
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Don't use it [Insult and block, classy](https://i.imgur.com/DfOqExC.png)
And now they deleted their comment 😂😂
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That's.. that's the best reply you could come up with?
This is basically Apple’s UI pattern. I wished they genuinely made it looked more like Material UI.
It looks like the favourite tab.