Sorry, Alexa and Siri. With these five Google Home features, I like it more

In the struggle for smart home rule, the Google Home is long considered an underdog. After all, Apple’s Competitive HomePod Devices are smart, Siri-powered devices full of Apple-style innovations. And with almost 70% of the market share, Amazon Echo devices with Alexa is very popular, consistent all other smart speaker brands sold out combined, and connects with just about every other smart device on the planet. For a while, the Google Home ecosystem was stuck somewhere until a deluge of updates in the last few months began to move the cursor.

As for digital assistants, I use them all. Every day I trust that Siri my iPhone and Apple TV duties with aplomb, but until recently Alexa and Google Assistant shared the duties for smart homes fairly evenly in my home. The only thing I still use an Amazon Echo for is playing music through much better speakers connected to Alexa’s audio port – a physical connection that no Google Home or Nest speaker has ever had.

Yes, Google Home and Google Assistant have come this far in a short space of time. But do not just accept my word for it. Try my top five favorite tips and tricks for Google Home that will make you wonder if the smart home race is even more of a match.

Turn off timer and alarms at ‘Stop’ speed

One thing I still can not overcome is how it’s awkward to call Google Assistant. “Hey, Google” and “OK, Google” just don’t roll off the tongue as gracefully as “Alexa” or even, “Hey, Siri.” Fortunately, Google’s platform compensates for its clumsy trigger phrase by eliminating it completely if you cancel the incessant ringing of a timer or alarm.

That’s right – the next time an alarm, timer, or other similar reminder goes off on your Google Home, you’ll waste your breath shouting ‘Hey, Google.’ Do not say, “Stop!” and the Google Home will be obedient. (You do not have to shout stop the word, especially if you have a Google Assistant password sensitivity knocked up on your speaker, but it’s definitely nicer if you do.) If you set kitchen times or other reminders as often as I do throughout the day, you’ll never sound an alarm with another digital assistant again.

Now, if only Google Home would make it easier to silence an alarm in another room as you can easily do with Alexa …

Plan tasks for the future

I eat. Very. In a zombie-like state between the waking world and sleeping, I’m happy when I remember closing the cereal or putting the milk back in the fridge, even less kitchen lights when I went back to bed. Or sometimes I will realize that I forgot to program myself coffee maker just like I’m disappearing into dreamland, and I’m sorry I have no way of programming it just by using my voice.

Enter Google Home with the most amazing solution to a problem that I never even realized could be solved – scheduled tasks. Google Assistant can now plan tasks for the future, giving you the task when it’s your turn, and not just hoping you’ll remember when the time comes. Check out our guide for to get the most out of these Google Home scheduled tasks here, but the key is to simply tell Google Home when you want it to take a specific action, as follows:

• “Hey, Google, turn off the kitchen lights in 10 minutes.”
• “OK, Google, brew coffee at 8:00”
• “Hey, Google, turn on the sidewalk light for 30 minutes.”

Try it with Siri and it will tell you that it can not schedule commands. Alexa will immediately do what you ask instead of waiting. Be warned – this feature becomes addictive and fast.

Plan an entire day with Workday and Family Bell

Talk about scheduling things for the type A personalities out there … Every smart housekeeper worth his digital salt has a way of creating personal assignments, usually called routines. But Google recently introduced two plant tools for schemes that can refine your agenda in ways that Alexa and Siri can not nearly imitate.

Workday is designed to keep you going individually during your work hours: it will remind you to stand and stretch, take your afternoon coffee break or to fold things up at the end of your day. Family Bell is more focused on organizing your entire group and alerting your family when it’s time to spend the next hour on arts and crafts, for example, or meeting lunch in the kitchen. We give step-by-step instructions for routine templates here (browse to the second subsection in the linked article for details).

Move your music through the house right away

If smart speakers are judged on nothing but their apps, the Google Home will easily crush the competition. The app interface is the simplest, most intuitive to use, and let’s be honest, the most beautiful to look at. And it helps you to handle one of the most common smart home tasks easily.

I’m talking about multiroom media controls. To get started, make the Google Home App and tap on the Media button. From there, it’s pretty obvious, but you can refer to our in-depth multiroom music tutorial here for tips and tricks to try next time to create custom speaker groups in real time. Siri and Alexa let you both play through different sets of speakers distributed in your home, but neither of the two controls are easy to master.

Enjoy Google Home’s Goldilocks Zone Short Mode

One of the most beloved Alexa features is the platforms chat-reducing “short mode”‘which enables Amazon Echo devices to respond to certain commands with just a chime (instead of repeating the command to you verbatim). But even this popular environment is far from perfect. First, it’s an all-or-nothing proposal. Either Alexa wants to confirm, or she’s chatting to you, without any real option in between. (Siri does not have a comparable function, so he has to expand this round.)

The Google Home has its own short mode when you adjust behind the scenes. It may be a little hairy at first, but it’s worth it.

In principle, a Google Home will recognize commands with a chime, as long as: 1) the device you are talking to is grouped in the same room as the device or devices you want to control and 2) those other devices become lights in Google identified. Home app. What this means is that you’ll have to fiber a bit if you want a Google Home to quietly control a space heater or something other than a light by turning it into a ‘light’ in Google identify Home app.

I promise, it’s not as complicated as it sounds. We have more thorough instructions here, and once you get past the initial hurdle of setting it up correctly, it’s smooth from now on. And of course, if you just want to control lights, you just have to set up rooms as usual, and Google Home takes care of the rest.

If Google continues to use features such as the Zoom calls, new home and away modes and compatibility with competitive music services it added in 2020, maybe a year from now, whether the Google Home is an underdog or a category winner would be as unnecessary as shouting, ‘Hey, Google’ before giving a stop! ‘