Google Home Finally Adds Support For Buttons (theverge.com) 33
An anonymous reader shares a report: Google Home users, your long nightmare is over. The platform has finally added support for buttons. The release notes for a February 2 update state that several new starter conditions for automations are now available, including "Switch or button pressed."
Smart buttons are physical, programmable switches that you can press to trigger automations or control devices in your smart home, such as turning lights on or off, opening and closing shades, running a Good Night scene, or starting a robot vacuum. A great alternative to voice and app control when you want to control multiple devices, smart buttons are often wireless and generally have several ways to press them: single press, double press, and long press, meaning one button can do multiple things.
Smart buttons are physical, programmable switches that you can press to trigger automations or control devices in your smart home, such as turning lights on or off, opening and closing shades, running a Good Night scene, or starting a robot vacuum. A great alternative to voice and app control when you want to control multiple devices, smart buttons are often wireless and generally have several ways to press them: single press, double press, and long press, meaning one button can do multiple things.
Imagine that (Score:3)
A switch on the wall that you can use to turn lights on and off. We live in truly magical times.
Re:Imagine that (Score:5, Insightful)
All jokes aside, this is more useful as "a button next to my bed that shuts off all the inside and outside lights, closes all the doors, activates the alarm, turns down the heat, makes sure the tv is off, and disables notifications until the morning."
I've also seen one used as "a button to hit on your way to work to shut off all the things you forgot to shut off."
A panic button next to your bed could be "turn on all the outside lights, save all the security camera footage somewhere extra, and tell me if any motion detectors outside this room go off any time in the next 10 minutes."
I imagine someone will want one that makes their cell phone make a noise, so they can find it.
Or, it's a simple way to add a second switch to a room (or hallway) with one inconveniently-placed switch.
For a young child who is afraid of the dark, a button to dim the lights to 20% after they're in bed, and automatically turn them off an hour later.
A wireless doorbell.
Etc.
Re: (Score:2)
This. The person who focuses on the lights in the room is completely missing the point and should not invest in or even talk about smart home. The smart home is a replacement for any project that would require you to run more than 3 wires to a fitting.
Re: Imagine that (Score:2)
But also the lights in the room, because most people can relate to things like making every light dimmable, color temp changing, switches spanning multiple circuits, and switches and motion sensors being super low power and anywhere.
Re: Imagine that (Score:2)
I've never used google home, so I'm totally in the dark here--but if they haven't previously implemented a feature as simple as a button or switch, how can it do anything else at all? It's the most basic of input methods.
At any rate, occupancy sensors / motion sensors basically operate on the same premise as a physical switch in any home automation system I've ever used. Without that capability can it even be called a smart home system?
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You are correct. have always had turn on and turn off, but that was just the switch in a device. If I understand the summary...F the VergePayWall. This allows you to add a switch with user defineable actions, that can include multiple actions or devices.
A single local button to turn on my PC/Printer/Speakers versus voice or app.
Re: Imagine that (Score:2)
Most smart home products have a bridge that speaks WiFi to you and something like zigbee to your lightbulbs. Say you use HUE, you use their software on your phone to program switches to control the lights. The box does the actual work of listening for signals from buttons and switches and sending commands to lights.
How Google and Apple fit in is they can elect one of your network devices like their smart speakers or streaming devices to be their "smart home controller" or whatever they call it. That box eit
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Re: Imagine that (Score:2)
Indeed. Labor to install switches in new locations can be very expensive, especially if you need long runs and also have to open, patch, repaint and texture drywall. It can easily add up to 30x the cost of a wireless battery operated smart button, usually referred to a scene controller.
However, it should still work without the cloud needing to be up. I had a 24 hour Comcast outage recently. No reason my smart lights and switches should stop working during the outage. And they did not, since I use Home assis
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It is unfortunately daunting to setup, well beyond the capabilities of old people, especially.
Well... beyond... the...
Look, sonny, who do you think invented the Internet? No, it wasn't Al Gore (if you're even old enough to understand that reference). I didn't have to call in my grandchildren to set up my smart home for me, which is just as well, because they wouldn't have the faintest clue where to begin. Also, I don't have any grandchildren, but my hypothetical is better than yours!
Are we to understand that your parents are technologically incompetent, and you assume that must apply to everyone els
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Are we to understand that your parents are technologically incompetent, and you assume that must apply to everyone else's parents?
If your UID's reflect your ages, I think that would explain the difference here.
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Re: Imagine that (Score:2)
You use buttons and switches with any home automation product jackass, you program them with whatever software came with your bridge/hub thing, Google, or Apple's software aren't needed unless you want more complicated integrations. The bridge, hue bridge for example, listens and sends events to other devices.
I don't have experience with Android or Google home but I assume it's analogous to HomeKit. Some other box on your network gets elected to be a smart home controller, it can also listen and respond to
there are still people working on google home?! (Score:1)
Great! So there's a non-zero chance Portuguese speakers get 'Continued Conversation' before 2030? :/
Just kidding... Everyone knows Google Brazil is just a law firm with a cafeteria.
Re: get rid of Google Home: use task manager (Score:2)
Google "Google home".
It's not Google Launcher.
Google+ == Google Home (Score:2)
A old mystery explained (Score:3)
> meaning one button can do multiple things.
At last, we know how the console buttons of Padme's ship work.
Google also announced (Score:2)
Google then announced that they'd be shuttering all Google Home products and services on July 1st, 2026 because an in-house review found that Google Home was popular and useful.
Can't wait to try out Home Assistant when I can... (Score:4, Informative)
.. Google Home has been nerfed in so many ways over the past few years, it's almost useless now save for turning my lights on and off.
- They killed the Apps SDK, and all games and custom stuff
- They killed Google Music, and 'play X from my Library", only Youtube Premium Music now or ads in between every damn track
- They killed all podcast feeds other than Youtube Music (many podcasts aren't on Youtube).
- They have borked most radio stations (used to be able to play almost any station via TuneIn)
The Enshittification has been wide, deep and purposeful. No way in hell will I *ever* pay for Youtube Premium.
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Home Assistant is the way to go. IKEA smart stuff is decent too, because it works well with Home Assistant and they seem to have taken the position that they will make it easy to replace the "brains" of the system with your own.
It would be nice if they updated the Next doorbell (Score:2)
The video doorbells (which are part of Google Home) have been using the same software for a decade now. They are clearly not investing in upgrades to the usability of the app and web interface. It often takes a minute or two to get a live video feed when somebody rings the doorbell, and that's despite having Wifi 6 and 5G fiber. And half the time, instead of the video feed, you get a nag message trying to offer some upgrade or other service, and then it won't show you the actual notification that triggered
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... (Next doorbell) ... I'm so fed up I'm ready to switch to Ring or something else.
FWIW, if you thought that was bad, I wouldn't advise the Blink Doorbell. Very similar experience here. The lag makes it nearly unusable.
There are so many cameras out there that are way cheaper and can have a video feed pulled up nearly instantly. Can't we get a doorbell that has works half as good? Anyone happen to know of a Raspberry PI, or similar, sort of solution?
"Nightmare"? (Score:2)
Seriously, when you consider this type of product, you LOOK at it. And a home automation solution that does not support buttons? That is just a bad joke to stay away from.
Re: "Nightmare"? (Score:2)
No no, every home automation bridge supports buttons. You don't go straight from your phone to smart light unless you're using one in WiFi mode?
Most smart home setups use a low power mesh protocol like zigbee. Then you need something central that responds to events from switches and sends commands to lights, plus exposes an API on your wifi network for you to control everything from your phone. That's your bridge or hub, and it also manages security. Real simple, like press this button to pair, now you have
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I do not use home automation. I want things to work. Well, I have an irrigation system, but no Internet connection on that one and it is my own design anyways.
Listening (Score:2)
"Google refused to explain why all supported buttons were required to contain microphones."
Your home can now have icons? (Score:2)
Your long nightmare is not over (Score:2)
Nah, they're still being spied on by Evil Google.
Next year (Score:2)
They'll be adding support for zippers!