Speaker 1: Trying out new features on Google Home. What's going on
Speaker 1: on rich Tomiro? This is Rich on Tech. I really
Speaker 1: enjoy the Google Homes I have in my house because
Speaker 1: of several reasons. The first is that it's always evolving.
Speaker 1: It understands almost every command that you bark in it,
Speaker 1: you don't need to say things in a particular way,
Speaker 1: and it's always getting new features. Recently, Google sent me
Speaker 1: a bunch of gadgets so I could try out some
Speaker 1: new Google Home features, including Spanish routines, continued conversations, and more.
Speaker 1: So let's go through a few of the new features
Speaker 1: available on Google Home. Now. One of those is Spanish.
Speaker 1: So you know that Google Home used to be able
Speaker 1: to translate Spanish, Well, now it can understand commands actually
Speaker 1: spoken in Spanish, and that's a big deal for a
Speaker 1: lot of people that want to speak to Google Home
Speaker 1: in a different language other than English. So if you
Speaker 1: want to set that up, all you have to do
Speaker 1: is open the Google Home app and tap menu. Then
Speaker 1: you go into Settings, select Preferences, and there will be
Speaker 1: an option for Espanol. Next up, Continue Conversation. Now, this
Speaker 1: one I'm kind of torn on because I see the
Speaker 1: pros and cons of it. Now, a bit of background, Usually,
Speaker 1: when you want to activate your Google Home you have
Speaker 1: to say those hot words that start with okay or
Speaker 1: hey right. I'm not gonna say I'm here because I
Speaker 1: don't want to activate your phone or your speaker in
Speaker 1: the background. But now with this new feature called Continued Conversation,
Speaker 1: you can basically continue talking to Google without saying the
Speaker 1: activation phrase every time. So that means you can say,
Speaker 1: what's the weather in Hawaii, and then you can follow
Speaker 1: up with how about next week? Or you know, maybe
Speaker 1: the weather in a different place, or you can just
Speaker 1: continue back and forth with your original query instead of
Speaker 1: saying those keywords every single time. So it's more like
Speaker 1: a conversation with Google rather than that very specific here's
Speaker 1: my hot word and my question. Okay, here's another hot word,
Speaker 1: here's another question. Now. To set this up, you have
Speaker 1: to go into the Google Home app, hit the menu button,
Speaker 1: then more Settings, then you go into Preferences, and then
Speaker 1: you tap continued Conversation to turn it on. Now, keep
Speaker 1: in mind, once you turn this feature on, your Google
Speaker 1: Home basically keeps listening even after it answers your original question,
Speaker 1: because it's waiting for a follow up question. Now. After
Speaker 1: a certain amount of time, it will time out and
Speaker 1: close the mic. But if you want to manually stop
Speaker 1: the conversation, you can say thank you or stop when
Speaker 1: you're actually finished. Now. In my testing, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I kind of like this feature because I like the
Speaker 1: ability to go back and forth with Google. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, I find that in my house with
Speaker 1: a lot of people talking, the microphone pretty much stayed
Speaker 1: open the whole time because it kept interpreting things that
Speaker 1: we were saying. So you can try this out see
Speaker 1: if you like it, turn it off if you don't
Speaker 1: like that continued conversation all right. Next up routines. These
Speaker 1: lets you get multiple things done by speaking just a
Speaker 1: single command, and they can be really handy if you
Speaker 1: set them up properly, so you can say things like
Speaker 1: your keyword and then I'm home, and this can turn
Speaker 1: on the lights, share your reminders, play your favorite music,
Speaker 1: and whatever else you want it to do. Google has
Speaker 1: six pre built routines that are right inside the app,
Speaker 1: including good morning, bedtime, and leaving home. You can also
Speaker 1: build your own routines right inside the Google Home app,
Speaker 1: and it makes it pretty easy. First, you set a
Speaker 1: command using whatever words you want. Then you add actions,
Speaker 1: so whatever you want those actions to be, like adjusting
Speaker 1: the lights or turning on a smart plug. Then you
Speaker 1: can also add other things like you can have Google
Speaker 1: say details from your calendar or play a playlist. The
Speaker 1: possibilities are really unlimited here. You can do what you want,
Speaker 1: and the Google app helps you kind of move along
Speaker 1: with your command. So it starts by saying, Okay, what
Speaker 1: do you want your command word to be? Then what
Speaker 1: do you want me to do? Here are some popular
Speaker 1: things you can do, so it gives you ideas. Of course,
Speaker 1: you are free to really make this your own, and
Speaker 1: this is going to take a little bit more work,
Speaker 1: but I think if you play around with it, you
Speaker 1: can really find some useful things. So, for instance, for
Speaker 1: a bedtime routine, even though they've pre built one, you
Speaker 1: can kind of adjust what you want the music to be,
Speaker 1: how you want the lights to be adjusted, or what
Speaker 1: you want Google to tell you before you go to sleep.
Speaker 1: We built one in my TV segment to start popping
Speaker 1: popcorn by setting a routine called movie Night. So we
Speaker 1: had a smart plug. It's connected to a popcorn maker.
Speaker 1: You can have the popcorn maker activate and You can
Speaker 1: even go as far as having your Chrome Cast connected
Speaker 1: to your TV start playing a certain movie that you want,
Speaker 1: although if you say movie night every Friday night and
Speaker 1: it plays the same movie, that'd be kind of weird.
Speaker 1: But again, you can have it play something like a
Speaker 1: YouTube playlist of the most popular videos. Whatever you want.
Speaker 1: And I've built a few of these mainly for my music.
Speaker 1: So I have certain routines like play some country music,
Speaker 1: play some pop music, play some new music, play some
Speaker 1: chill music. And then what I have those routines do
Speaker 1: is those commands that I've customized actually link up to
Speaker 1: a specific Spotify playlist. So even though I'm saying play
Speaker 1: some country music, what Google Home does is it goes
Speaker 1: into Spotify and it shuffles a country playlist called hot Country.
Speaker 1: So instead of saying something like Google shuffle the Spotify
Speaker 1: playlist called hot Country, all I have to do is
Speaker 1: say Google play some country music. See how that works.
Speaker 1: So that's a good one. Definitely check out the routines
Speaker 1: in the Google Home app. All Right, one final thing
Speaker 1: that I really like, and this has been around for
Speaker 1: a while, but it's called broadcast, and this turns your
Speaker 1: Google Home speakers into an old school PA system, so
Speaker 1: you can open up the Google Assistant app on your phone.
Speaker 1: If you have an iPhone, you can download an app
Speaker 1: called the Google Assistant, or if you have Android, you
Speaker 1: can just activate the Google Assistant and then you say
Speaker 1: something like Google broadcast I'm heading home, and next thing
Speaker 1: you know, all your speakers will spring to life and
Speaker 1: play a little recording of what you just said. Into
Speaker 1: Google Assistant, you can say something like Google broadcast, I'm
Speaker 1: headed home and I picked up dinner, so don't worry
Speaker 1: about it, We're having tacos for dinner, and every one
Speaker 1: of your speakers in your home will play that little recording. Now,
Speaker 1: a little word to the wise. I tried this out
Speaker 1: without telling my family what I was doing, and they
Speaker 1: were all kind of spooked because all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the speakers in my house came to life and played
Speaker 1: a little recording of me. So that was kind of weird.
Speaker 1: So tell people in your house before you actually use
Speaker 1: this command. Google also has some pre built messages and
Speaker 1: sounds that you can share automatically, so you can say
Speaker 1: things like it's dinner time and it will broadcast at
Speaker 1: dinner bell all kinds of fun stuff like that and
Speaker 1: you can see a full list of suggestions linked in
Speaker 1: the show notes. All right, so some of the products
Speaker 1: we use that Google sent us for testing the Google
Speaker 1: Home Mini, the smart light bulb. Google sent us one
Speaker 1: from tp Link. I also like the ones from Lifix,
Speaker 1: but I find the most reliable ones are from Phillips Hugh.
Speaker 1: They also sent us a Wi Fi plug, also from
Speaker 1: tp Link. I've used ones from Wemo and also another
Speaker 1: company on Amazon called Greenie, and they are really cheap
Speaker 1: and they work just as well. And they also sent
Speaker 1: a Chrome Cast, which of course I already have in
Speaker 1: my home. The chrome Cast can really be fun because
Speaker 1: you can use it to literally play things off of
Speaker 1: Netflix or play things off of YouTube. All you have
Speaker 1: to do is talk to your Google Home and it's
Speaker 1: a command like Google play Stranger Things on my living
Speaker 1: room TV. So the syntax is play the show that
Speaker 1: you want to see along with the Romecast device however
Speaker 1: you have that named, and your TV will spring to
Speaker 1: life and play that show. It is very cool. Right now,
Speaker 1: you can't say the actual specific episode and season of
Speaker 1: the show you want to watch, but you can also
Speaker 1: search YouTube there you have it. Just some of the
Speaker 1: fun things you can do with the new Google Home features.
Speaker 1: If you want a full rundown and links to everything
Speaker 1: I mentioned, just go to my website. It is richon
Speaker 1: tech dot tv. And if you're loving the podcast, which
Speaker 1: I hope you play every single day, that is available,
Speaker 1: I would love if you rted and reviewed it. It only
Speaker 1: takes a second. Just go into Apple Podcasts, search for
Speaker 1: my podcast and tap the write a review functionality. You
Speaker 1: can even just leave stars. That works too, but if
Speaker 1: you write something that's really nice, I'm Rich Dimiro. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for listening. I'll talk to you real soon.