Things Google Assistant / Home needs
One of the cool things about owning a Google Home is that there are always new features coming along. Here are some I think it needs to push along desperately.
Show me one episode
My wife watches Cheers to fall asleep to quite often. I can’t sleep or stay asleep if something’s on or there’s light. I’ve quite often been struggling to get to sleep or looked over to a “are you still watching” notification on Netflix.
Yeah, show me one episode then turn off the TV would be desirable. Because if I notice it and have to turn it off it’s me yelling over a sleeping person “hey google, turn off the tv”
Ask for clarification
“Turn the roku off,” and “turn the roku up” quite often get mixed up. I’ll watch the text translation sometimes even switch between off and up when it didn’t quite hear me.
Now, I don’t have volume on my Roku, so this should be a no brainer to turn it off.
Play so many minutes of music
I want to play 30 minutes of music on a playlist… fading out over the last few minutes.
Put things on a list simply by telling Google I’m out of them.
“Hey google, I’m out of eggs” – I would expect it to add to a list of some sort, but instead I get “eggs. I don’t know.”
Network stats
Google’s playing choppy, perhaps seeming very delayed. Tell me why. Is my WiFi strength low, are we dropping packets, is the internet having issues? It’s hard to figure out what’s going on quickly.
Intercom mode
I’ve got these things around the house. As it stands if I want to tell someone something I say “Hey Google, broadcast….” then get “what’s the message” followed by me saying whatever I want and it broadcasting to all devices.
Well, I’ve got a speaker in my kitchen, the kids rooms, etc… I want the thing to just talk to that one without triggering the 4yo and 6yo to start broadcasting at all hours “pooooooop… pooopoo in my diaper… pooop”
Research tools
Every now and then I get a good result when asking about something, but usually it’s hot garbage of a preview. I want contextual follow ups to some of these searches it’s pulled.
Audio history
Google’s coming alive more and more these days. I’d like the wake trigger recorded along with the requests. I also want to know things like why my light is suddenly pink, which I assume was done by a kid but what did Google hear to make it think they wanted to turn a light they don’t even know about that color?
I have no idea what the kids are asking 90% of the time because the history is just not there.
Disable features
The ability to disable broadcast mode, messing with the temperature, etc are vital to parent sanity. Or at least being able to throw up a challenge.
Training
Google’s great, but it needs to let me train my voice so it understands me better. Nobody’s cookie cutter, and I have to speak stilted quite often for it to understand me.
Dates and times available on photo displays
Oh that photo’s adorbs on the display…. when was it taken, I want to print it… how does one see this info from a touch display? A history of photos shown somewhere might be really useful to Google’s photo printing business.
