A bit ago Assistant stopped responding normally
TL;DR – word order appears to matter more lately than it used to.
I use Google Assistant to do a lot of things around the house. One, shown here, is to turn off the living room TV. Up until a week or two ago I could say “Hey Google, turn the living room tv off.” This would work every time.
As of a few days ago asking it that same request tells me it can’t play the video or it needs to know what device to play on. Er… no Google, I want a tv turned off.
It appears to be more than just the TV for me, but it’s past midnight and I am not going to wake up the kiddos to film in their bedroom showing how a light sequence has to be stated.
Just something in the Googleverse changed. If you find yourself unable to turn something on or off, or ancient routines where you typed in the commands are no longer working, reconsider the word order. No more trigger, half, device name, half. Appears to be trigger, full, device name. Little less natural, more programmatic.
Does explain why the kids have been triggering videos lately by accident.
I think between Google mishearing half of what I ask for these days and this pedantic change in word order requirement, they’ve finally decided to exact revenge for my existence. That or perhaps my kids telling Google they hated her multiple times to see if she would do anything.
