In the spirit of helping others, here is something I figured out last night that will make my Google Home even more powerful.
I wanted the ability to say a phrase to the Home, "Hey Google, it's time for bed" and it turns off all the lights in my house and then turns on the lamps in my bedroom (all Hue). The problem is that neither the "Shortcuts" in the Google Home app nor IFTTT can string together multiple commands. This means that I would have to tell Google to turn off all lights, and then tell it to turn on the lights in the bedroom. Lame.
I installed an app called "Stringify" last night. Basically, it's a workflow engine that integrates with tons of smart home devices, including Google Assistant and Hue. I then created a "flow" that kicks off when I say "I'm going to bed". These flows let you string together multiple commands, so I added the command to turn off all lights, and when that's done, turn on the bedroom lights.
At this point, I would have to say "Hey Google, tell stringify I'm going to bed", which isn't cool. To solve this, I added a Google Home shortcut that sends the "Hey Google, tell stringify I'm going to bed" whenever I simply say "Hey Google, I'm going to bed". It works perfectly!
As all of these devices/apps start to mature, the ability to do really interesting stuff is emerging.
|