Google Home now a little smarter with smart devices
In my living room I have three smart outlets. Currently each one is associated with a light that’s located terribly, one is on the far side of the couch and you sort of have to crawl on the couch to get to it, one is next to the TV which is not a bad thing but you have to reach under a shade and find the knob to turn it on, and one the entire light wants to fall over if you look at it sideways.
One of those is also on a switch because my house was built in 1940 and outlet switched lights were cool.
I’ve got all three on smart switches now, and they’re grouped into a living room lights category. Up until last night if I said “hey Google, turn on the living room lights” it would say “turning on three lights” whether the switch with the smart outlet was turned on or off.
As of testing yesterday, and by testing I mean I was re-hooking up a Nintendo Wii and trying to teach my kid how to use a WiiMote, I needed to turn on the lights and said “Hey Google, turn on the living room lights” and I got a response “you got it, turning 2 lights off. It looks like the couch light isn’t available right now.” Which it wasn’t because the switch was off.
While I have not tested this, occasionally I’ve had a plug that wonked out (usually due to me swapping WiFi,) and it would have been nice to know that said plug was no longer functioning so I didn’t think something was happening when it wasn’t.
Earth shattering upgrade? No. Just something nice.
As a PS, my 5yo discovered that if you ask Google Home if she wants to build a snowman enough times it will say “The movie Frozen came out in 2013, let it go”.
