Teaching google nest mini!

[ericmark]

It works well, finds good music, works as a bluetooth speaker for laptop, however it seems to also have a few odd things which it gets wrong repeatedly.

"Hay google turn off music" gets reply "OK turning off 5 switches" and the lights go out, "hay google turn living room heating to 22°C" gets "Sorry I don't know how to do that yet" I am sure just not using correct commands or not set right, so question is does it work OK for other people.

It has done its main job, we have no radio reception where I live, so wanted to listen to radio 2 or 4 without needing to switch on TV. But would be nice to get it to turn up heat or switch on lights.

 

[Phil-De-Fridge]

Might be of some use

Phil

 

[SFK]

Eric,
Same issue.
Works 80pc of time.
Annoying 20pc if time.
And I am not asking it to do anything too complex.

Issues with simple tasks like add Milk to Shopping list.

Gave up trying to ask complex things such as ' turn off music in 10 minutes".

Shame as can see potential.
SFK

 

[ericmark]

Not my Welsh accent then. It does what we got it for, it plays radio 4, but it should be able to do so much more. I did like the clip.

 

[mattylad]

Have you tried "turn music off" instead of "turn off music" ??

 

[paulrockliffe]

If it's playing then it's as simple as saying Stop, Pause, Skip etc.

That said, if you've connected to the speaker via Bluetooth or using Cast then you can't use voice control on what's playing.

For your heating I suspect you need to use a different word other than turn and heating. I use set and temperature and it works fine.

You need to have your setup right in the Google Home app though, each device should be in the correctly named room or against the whole house, that's used to give context when you say Living Room. Of course if you don't have the physical kit to set the temperature in a single room, you're doing it completely wrong, but I presume you do.

 

[ericmark]

Now they are talking to each other, asked for classical guitar music, it went to U-Tube and the advert said if you want xyz then say google abc and the mini in the other room responded.

 

[paulrockliffe]

Ha ha, that's quite odd as I have several, including my phone that respond when I speak. They work out between them which one is nearest to me and that one responds, it even uses the devices when my phone is nearer and how it works with my phone when I'm asking for things like directions, where it'll summarise the journey by voice and send a navigation link to my phone. My only complaint is that if I ask what's on my shopping list it reads the first few items, not the fuill list, rather than just opening the list on my phone screen.

If I had to guess I'd suggest the two devices aren't setup in the same Home, so they don't know about each other. Have a look in the Google Home app and check everything is set properly there.

 

[ericmark]

Wife's bedroom odd one out, but that was not one of the pair, it did take some time to allocate rooms to light switches, sockets, TRV heads, and wall thermostat, plus the 3 second gen mini's and 2 first gen mini's. Wife set up her bedroom with her phone, but both her mobiles and mine are all linked to same account so broadcast does work in all rooms.

Some times I get odd commands, wife has said "I want some help down here." I get the command "Here" they are a bit too handy, I feel like a dog doing what I am told, can't pretend I can't hear what she is saying any more.

As said they play radio well, and will be dumping the commercial radios now, this area is very poor for radio, and was using satellite to get radio programs. Not worked out how to do shopping list yet, not sure I want to, I will end up doing all the shopping.

I can get it to tell me room temperature, but to alter still not worked it out, seems to random switch off lights, not got it to switch them on yet.

 

[foxhole]

Not my Welsh accent then. It does what we got it for, it plays radio 4, but it should be able to do so much more. I did like the clip.

Is there no 'HuH' or "U" sound in the welsh lanquage, notice TV presenters , newsmen and even rugby ref cannot pronouce words correctly. Hugh gets pronouced 'oooh', and the welsh ref says 'oose it' rather than 'use it'.

 

[ericmark]

There are 28 sounds in the Welsh alphabet, note no J so where did the Jones come from? Unlike English all words are phonically spelt so English "Lorry" in Welsh is spelt "Lori" said the same, just spelt the Welsh way. English when it imports words does not change the spelling, Welsh does.

So in English Canada and Granada have completely different ways of pronouncing the end of the word, even when spelt the same. Happisburgh I would have spelt Hazebough one simply has to know how to pronounce you can't use phonics.

To be fair there is a little of that with Welsh Llanfair I would pronounce as Lanvir but locals say Lanver, However Shrewsbury no one seems to know how it is pronounced, some say Shrosbury.

However with Nest Mini one is asked to read out sentences so it can adjust to your speech, and also work out who is speaking, so really no excuse.

Likely it is down to order of words, is it speaker in Eric's bedroom or Eric's bedroom speaker? As to house name Nyth Wyvern well that's anyone guess, must admit I some times translate when I should not, So ask for Synch wood bridge, instead of Pont SynchCoed, English and Welsh are mixed together so hard some times. If Caereinion means fort then how do we get Castle Caereinion is it so good they named it twice?

 

[paulrockliffe]

Torpenhow (pronounced trupena) in Cumbria breaks down to Tor Pen How, all mean Hill in Viking, Roman, Saxon or something like that. Conquer, rename without bothering to learn the local language.

It definitely helps to avoid names that Google can use as context when you name the devices. I had my speakers in the format Room-Google to differentiate playing from the device itself rather letting it default tot he ceiling speakers and had loads of problems until I removed Google from the name. In your example I think you would just not use the word 'speaker' as it is only interested in that you want to play, what you want to play and the name of the thing you want to play it on if it's not the nearest device and it's default output.

That said, I have speaker in the name of my devices now and it works fine, so perhaps trying to understand how it works when it doesn't is futile.

If you just ask it to add something to your shopping list it should do it. If you have Voice Match setup you and your wife can collaborate on the list, if you add her to it, and have separate lists too. Then there's no reason for you to do the shopping. I ind that really handy as we both add stuff to the list when we realise we need it rather than forgetting when you do the shopping. Works well with online shopping, though I'm looking forward to Asda working out how to integrate their App with Home so they can pull my list and give me a list to OK.

Anyway, you sound like you know what you're doing, so I'm leaning towards your accent or something int he background that Google didn't get finished before they got bored and moved onto the next big thing. Which they do a lot.

 

[ericmark]

I have stopped trying to teach google, I let google teach me instead, and reply to wife "I don't understand how to do that yet." but the joke is starting to wear thin.

 

[Bill Door]

One tip to try is to make sure your WiFi 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz have the same SSID name. Router manufacturers used to make them different by default, but there is no reason for it, and everything becomes much smoother when all your connected devices can decide for themselves whether to be on 2.4 or 5.

 

[foxhole]

One tip to try is to make sure your WiFi 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz have the same SSID name. Router manufacturers used to make them different by default, but there is no reason for it, and everything becomes much smoother when all your connected devices can decide for themselves whether to be on 2.4 or 5.

Many of my devices don’t work on 5ghz so always keep them separate, ISP also recommended seperate ids to improve performance.