July 11, 2018 • 7 mins
A look at new features on the Google Home smart speaker including the ability to speak Spanish, have back and forth conversations and set routines.More information on the gadgets we used:https://ktla.com/2018/07/11/google-home-adds-spanish-continued-conversations-and-routines/Follow Rich on Social Media:Facebook: http://facebook.com/RichOnTechTwitter: http://twitter.com/richdemuroInstagram: http://instagram.com/richontechEasy ways to listen on your phone or smart speaker:"Hey Google, Play the Rich on Tech Podcast""Hey Siri, Play the Rich on Tech Podcast""Alexa, Enable the Rich on Tech Flash Briefing"
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Trying out new features on Google Home. What's going on
on rich Tomiro? This is Rich on Tech. I really
enjoy the Google Homes I have in my house because
of several reasons. The first is that it's always evolving.
It understands almost every command that you bark in it,
you don't need to say things in a particular way,
and it's always getting new features. Recently, Google sent me
a bunch of gadgets so I could try out some
(00:25):
new Google Home features, including Spanish routines, continued conversations, and more.
So let's go through a few of the new features
available on Google Home. Now. One of those is Spanish.
So you know that Google Home used to be able
to translate Spanish, Well, now it can understand commands actually
spoken in Spanish, and that's a big deal for a
lot of people that want to speak to Google Home
(00:47):
in a different language other than English. So if you
want to set that up, all you have to do
is open the Google Home app and tap menu. Then
you go into Settings, select Preferences, and there will be
an option for Espanol. Next up, Continue Conversation. Now, this
one I'm kind of torn on because I see the
pros and cons of it. Now, a bit of background, Usually,
when you want to activate your Google Home you have
(01:07):
to say those hot words that start with okay or
hey right. I'm not gonna say I'm here because I
don't want to activate your phone or your speaker in
the background. But now with this new feature called Continued Conversation,
you can basically continue talking to Google without saying the
activation phrase every time. So that means you can say,
what's the weather in Hawaii, and then you can follow
up with how about next week? Or you know, maybe
(01:29):
the weather in a different place, or you can just
continue back and forth with your original query instead of
saying those keywords every single time. So it's more like
a conversation with Google rather than that very specific here's
my hot word and my question. Okay, here's another hot word,
here's another question. Now. To set this up, you have
to go into the Google Home app, hit the menu button,
(01:50):
then more Settings, then you go into Preferences, and then
you tap continued Conversation to turn it on. Now, keep
in mind, once you turn this feature on, your Google
Home basically keeps listening even after it answers your original question,
because it's waiting for a follow up question. Now. After
a certain amount of time, it will time out and
close the mic. But if you want to manually stop
the conversation, you can say thank you or stop when
(02:13):
you're actually finished. Now. In my testing, I don't know.
I kind of like this feature because I like the
ability to go back and forth with Google. But at
the same time, I find that in my house with
a lot of people talking, the microphone pretty much stayed
open the whole time because it kept interpreting things that
we were saying. So you can try this out see
if you like it, turn it off if you don't
(02:33):
like that continued conversation all right. Next up routines. These
lets you get multiple things done by speaking just a
single command, and they can be really handy if you
set them up properly, so you can say things like
your keyword and then I'm home, and this can turn
on the lights, share your reminders, play your favorite music,
and whatever else you want it to do. Google has
(02:54):
six pre built routines that are right inside the app,
including good morning, bedtime, and leaving home. You can also
build your own routines right inside the Google Home app,
and it makes it pretty easy. First, you set a
command using whatever words you want. Then you add actions,
so whatever you want those actions to be, like adjusting
the lights or turning on a smart plug. Then you
can also add other things like you can have Google
(03:16):
say details from your calendar or play a playlist. The
possibilities are really unlimited here. You can do what you want,
and the Google app helps you kind of move along
with your command. So it starts by saying, Okay, what
do you want your command word to be? Then what
do you want me to do? Here are some popular
things you can do, so it gives you ideas. Of course,
you are free to really make this your own, and
(03:37):
this is going to take a little bit more work,
but I think if you play around with it, you
can really find some useful things. So, for instance, for
a bedtime routine, even though they've pre built one, you
can kind of adjust what you want the music to be,
how you want the lights to be adjusted, or what
you want Google to tell you before you go to sleep.
We built one in my TV segment to start popping
popcorn by setting a routine called movie Night. So we
(04:00):
had a smart plug. It's connected to a popcorn maker.
You can have the popcorn maker activate and You can
even go as far as having your Chrome Cast connected
to your TV start playing a certain movie that you want,
although if you say movie night every Friday night and
it plays the same movie, that'd be kind of weird.
But again, you can have it play something like a
YouTube playlist of the most popular videos. Whatever you want.
(04:21):
And I've built a few of these mainly for my music.
So I have certain routines like play some country music,
play some pop music, play some new music, play some
chill music. And then what I have those routines do
is those commands that I've customized actually link up to
a specific Spotify playlist. So even though I'm saying play
(04:42):
some country music, what Google Home does is it goes
into Spotify and it shuffles a country playlist called hot Country.
So instead of saying something like Google shuffle the Spotify
playlist called hot Country, all I have to do is
say Google play some country music. See how that works.
So that's a good one. Definitely check out the routines
(05:02):
in the Google Home app. All Right, one final thing
that I really like, and this has been around for
a while, but it's called broadcast, and this turns your
Google Home speakers into an old school PA system, so
you can open up the Google Assistant app on your phone.
If you have an iPhone, you can download an app
called the Google Assistant, or if you have Android, you
can just activate the Google Assistant and then you say
(05:23):
something like Google broadcast I'm heading home, and next thing
you know, all your speakers will spring to life and
play a little recording of what you just said. Into
Google Assistant, you can say something like Google broadcast, I'm
headed home and I picked up dinner, so don't worry
about it, We're having tacos for dinner, and every one
of your speakers in your home will play that little recording. Now,
(05:44):
a little word to the wise. I tried this out
without telling my family what I was doing, and they
were all kind of spooked because all of a sudden,
the speakers in my house came to life and played
a little recording of me. So that was kind of weird.
So tell people in your house before you actually use
this command. Google also has some pre built messages and
sounds that you can share automatically, so you can say
things like it's dinner time and it will broadcast at
(06:07):
dinner bell all kinds of fun stuff like that and
you can see a full list of suggestions linked in
the show notes. All right, so some of the products
we use that Google sent us for testing the Google
Home Mini, the smart light bulb. Google sent us one
from tp Link. I also like the ones from Lifix,
but I find the most reliable ones are from Phillips Hugh.
They also sent us a Wi Fi plug, also from
(06:29):
tp Link. I've used ones from Wemo and also another
company on Amazon called Greenie, and they are really cheap
and they work just as well. And they also sent
a Chrome Cast, which of course I already have in
my home. The chrome Cast can really be fun because
you can use it to literally play things off of
Netflix or play things off of YouTube. All you have
to do is talk to your Google Home and it's
(06:50):
a command like Google play Stranger Things on my living
room TV. So the syntax is play the show that
you want to see along with the Romecast device however
you have that named, and your TV will spring to
life and play that show. It is very cool. Right now,
you can't say the actual specific episode and season of
(07:10):
the show you want to watch, but you can also
search YouTube there you have it. Just some of the
fun things you can do with the new Google Home features.
If you want a full rundown and links to everything
I mentioned, just go to my website. It is richon
tech dot tv. And if you're loving the podcast, which
I hope you play every single day, that is available,
I would love if you rted and reviewed it. It only
(07:32):
takes a second. Just go into Apple Podcasts, search for
my podcast and tap the write a review functionality. You
can even just leave stars. That works too, but if
you write something that's really nice, I'm Rich Dimiro. Thanks
so much for listening. I'll talk to you real soon.
Trying out new features on Google Home. What's going on
on rich Tomiro? This is Rich on Tech. I really
enjoy the Google Homes I have in my house because
of several reasons. The first is that it's always evolving.
It understands almost every command that you bark in it,
you don't need to say things in a particular way,
and it's always getting new features. Recently, Google sent me
a bunch of gadgets so I could try out some
(00:25):
new Google Home features, including Spanish routines, continued conversations, and more.
So let's go through a few of the new features
available on Google Home. Now. One of those is Spanish.
So you know that Google Home used to be able
to translate Spanish, Well, now it can understand commands actually
spoken in Spanish, and that's a big deal for a
lot of people that want to speak to Google Home
(00:47):
in a different language other than English. So if you
want to set that up, all you have to do
is open the Google Home app and tap menu. Then
you go into Settings, select Preferences, and there will be
an option for Espanol. Next up, Continue Conversation. Now, this
one I'm kind of torn on because I see the
pros and cons of it. Now, a bit of background, Usually,
when you want to activate your Google Home you have
(01:07):
to say those hot words that start with okay or
hey right. I'm not gonna say I'm here because I
don't want to activate your phone or your speaker in
the background. But now with this new feature called Continued Conversation,
you can basically continue talking to Google without saying the
activation phrase every time. So that means you can say,
what's the weather in Hawaii, and then you can follow
up with how about next week? Or you know, maybe
(01:29):
the weather in a different place, or you can just
continue back and forth with your original query instead of
saying those keywords every single time. So it's more like
a conversation with Google rather than that very specific here's
my hot word and my question. Okay, here's another hot word,
here's another question. Now. To set this up, you have
to go into the Google Home app, hit the menu button,
(01:50):
then more Settings, then you go into Preferences, and then
you tap continued Conversation to turn it on. Now, keep
in mind, once you turn this feature on, your Google
Home basically keeps listening even after it answers your original question,
because it's waiting for a follow up question. Now. After
a certain amount of time, it will time out and
close the mic. But if you want to manually stop
the conversation, you can say thank you or stop when
(02:13):
you're actually finished. Now. In my testing, I don't know.
I kind of like this feature because I like the
ability to go back and forth with Google. But at
the same time, I find that in my house with
a lot of people talking, the microphone pretty much stayed
open the whole time because it kept interpreting things that
we were saying. So you can try this out see
if you like it, turn it off if you don't
(02:33):
like that continued conversation all right. Next up routines. These
lets you get multiple things done by speaking just a
single command, and they can be really handy if you
set them up properly, so you can say things like
your keyword and then I'm home, and this can turn
on the lights, share your reminders, play your favorite music,
and whatever else you want it to do. Google has
(02:54):
six pre built routines that are right inside the app,
including good morning, bedtime, and leaving home. You can also
build your own routines right inside the Google Home app,
and it makes it pretty easy. First, you set a
command using whatever words you want. Then you add actions,
so whatever you want those actions to be, like adjusting
the lights or turning on a smart plug. Then you
can also add other things like you can have Google
(03:16):
say details from your calendar or play a playlist. The
possibilities are really unlimited here. You can do what you want,
and the Google app helps you kind of move along
with your command. So it starts by saying, Okay, what
do you want your command word to be? Then what
do you want me to do? Here are some popular
things you can do, so it gives you ideas. Of course,
you are free to really make this your own, and
(03:37):
this is going to take a little bit more work,
but I think if you play around with it, you
can really find some useful things. So, for instance, for
a bedtime routine, even though they've pre built one, you
can kind of adjust what you want the music to be,
how you want the lights to be adjusted, or what
you want Google to tell you before you go to sleep.
We built one in my TV segment to start popping
popcorn by setting a routine called movie Night. So we
(04:00):
had a smart plug. It's connected to a popcorn maker.
You can have the popcorn maker activate and You can
even go as far as having your Chrome Cast connected
to your TV start playing a certain movie that you want,
although if you say movie night every Friday night and
it plays the same movie, that'd be kind of weird.
But again, you can have it play something like a
YouTube playlist of the most popular videos. Whatever you want.
(04:21):
And I've built a few of these mainly for my music.
So I have certain routines like play some country music,
play some pop music, play some new music, play some
chill music. And then what I have those routines do
is those commands that I've customized actually link up to
a specific Spotify playlist. So even though I'm saying play
(04:42):
some country music, what Google Home does is it goes
into Spotify and it shuffles a country playlist called hot Country.
So instead of saying something like Google shuffle the Spotify
playlist called hot Country, all I have to do is
say Google play some country music. See how that works.
So that's a good one. Definitely check out the routines
(05:02):
in the Google Home app. All Right, one final thing
that I really like, and this has been around for
a while, but it's called broadcast, and this turns your
Google Home speakers into an old school PA system, so
you can open up the Google Assistant app on your phone.
If you have an iPhone, you can download an app
called the Google Assistant, or if you have Android, you
can just activate the Google Assistant and then you say
(05:23):
something like Google broadcast I'm heading home, and next thing
you know, all your speakers will spring to life and
play a little recording of what you just said. Into
Google Assistant, you can say something like Google broadcast, I'm
headed home and I picked up dinner, so don't worry
about it, We're having tacos for dinner, and every one
of your speakers in your home will play that little recording. Now,
(05:44):
a little word to the wise. I tried this out
without telling my family what I was doing, and they
were all kind of spooked because all of a sudden,
the speakers in my house came to life and played
a little recording of me. So that was kind of weird.
So tell people in your house before you actually use
this command. Google also has some pre built messages and
sounds that you can share automatically, so you can say
things like it's dinner time and it will broadcast at
(06:07):
dinner bell all kinds of fun stuff like that and
you can see a full list of suggestions linked in
the show notes. All right, so some of the products
we use that Google sent us for testing the Google
Home Mini, the smart light bulb. Google sent us one
from tp Link. I also like the ones from Lifix,
but I find the most reliable ones are from Phillips Hugh.
They also sent us a Wi Fi plug, also from
(06:29):
tp Link. I've used ones from Wemo and also another
company on Amazon called Greenie, and they are really cheap
and they work just as well. And they also sent
a Chrome Cast, which of course I already have in
my home. The chrome Cast can really be fun because
you can use it to literally play things off of
Netflix or play things off of YouTube. All you have
to do is talk to your Google Home and it's
(06:50):
a command like Google play Stranger Things on my living
room TV. So the syntax is play the show that
you want to see along with the Romecast device however
you have that named, and your TV will spring to
life and play that show. It is very cool. Right now,
you can't say the actual specific episode and season of
(07:10):
the show you want to watch, but you can also
search YouTube there you have it. Just some of the
fun things you can do with the new Google Home features.
If you want a full rundown and links to everything
I mentioned, just go to my website. It is richon
tech dot tv. And if you're loving the podcast, which
I hope you play every single day, that is available,
I would love if you rted and reviewed it. It only
(07:32):
takes a second. Just go into Apple Podcasts, search for
my podcast and tap the write a review functionality. You
can even just leave stars. That works too, but if
you write something that's really nice, I'm Rich Dimiro. Thanks
so much for listening. I'll talk to you real soon.
Host
Rich DeMuro
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