One of the most annoying quirks of Google Home devices is their incessant need to repeat what the instructions they’ve just been given. Amazon’s Alexa doesn’t do this – thank goodness – but Google’s Assistant still does, and it drives us nuts.
Fortunately, it seems change is in the air. At least insofar as Assistant Routines are involved, Google Home devices have stopped repeating every single instruction, just getting on with the job instead.
Those of you who don’t use Routines probably won’t see this yet, but I know that for some things I will now be using routines to start common actions instead of just using the voice command, because I don’t need Google repeating what I’ve told it all the bloody time.
For example, when I put my son to bed, I usually turn on his bedside light (OK Google, turn on the kids light) and I start his playlist so he can listen to some music as he goes off (OK Google, play the kids bedtime playlist). Each command is effectively repeated back to me (OK, turning on the kids light / OK, playing your Google Play Music playlist called Kids Bedtime).
Now, to stop it doing this, I’ll create a routine called kids bedtime which performs those two actions. Hopefully it’ll be less mouthy in the process.
I will update this article later with my findings!
Because I have a frankenstein setup (but who’s home automation isn’t?), my “goodbye” routine has the Home talking and talking and talking and talking… I’ve usually gotten into the car, buckled up, started the car and driven out of the garage while it’s still saying things.
I’d be happy with a “quietly” command:
Hey Google quietly turn off the light.
I actually submitted exactly this feature request to the home team a year ago. It’s so annoying having my 3 month old daughter falling asleep, so I want to turn the white noise on, so I whisper “hey google, play white noise”, and then google responds “HERE’S THE SOUND OF WHITE NOISE!!!”.
Argh so stupid
This repeating of commands is so annoying. Can’t wait to see it gone.