Google Home

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Have been pondering selling my Home and switching to an Echo just for the far superior voice detection. Lately mine, which is situated just below my wall mounted TV has decided it wants to be deaf therefore most commands are misses rather than hits. Two of my mates have an Echo mini with the same setup and theirs picks up voices without a hitch.

In addition the inconsistency in playing music from my Google Play music library makes the feature useless now. I just cba dealing with that.
 
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Do you have your TV audio coming out of the TV itself, or speakers somewhere else? Can't be helpful placing the Home right next to your TV audio.
 
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Have been pondering selling my Home and switching to an Echo just for the far superior voice detection. Lately mine, which is situated just below my wall mounted TV has decided it wants to be deaf therefore most commands are misses rather than hits. Two of my mates have an Echo mini with the same setup and theirs picks up voices without a hitch.

In addition the inconsistency in playing music from my Google Play music library makes the feature useless now. I just cba dealing with that.

Since I have had the opposite experience to yours with my Google Home, I wonder if there might be another issue with the problem you are experiencing with voice detection. For example, do you have any WiFi issues around the wall mounted TV or any "interference" in that location? My living room GH is mounted on a chest of drawers with plenty of space around the unit so as not to block any signal or any microphones (I believe GH has three microphones, more than Amazon Echo). It is located four or five feet away from the TV. The microphones pick up my voice from some distance away and even when there are other sounds such as the TV playing. I have two other Home units around the house---one in the kitchen and one in the bedroom and the voice interaction works perfectly. Incidentally, I bought Google WiFi which uses a mesh network for the two units I have around the house but I have not heard of any voice interaction problems with other friends who have Google Home with other WiFi providers.

As to inconsistency in opening up and playing music from my Google Play library, again I have never experienced any issue. Google has been working with voice and Bluetooth for years and in my opinion, they have nailed both. I confirm both work extremely well with my Google Pixel earbuds too. I can wander off perhaps 100-150 feet away from my Pixel 2 XL and the Pixel Buds Bluetooth works flawlessly with my voice command when playing my music.
 
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Kainz

With regards to playing music from your Google Play library, do you mean via the Google Assistant? If so then this has stopped working recently unless you have a paid subscription.
 
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Kainz

With regards to playing music from your Google Play library, do you mean via the Google Assistant? If so then this has stopped working recently unless you have a paid subscription.
This is by me asking GH directly i.e "Hey Google, play some Phil Collins". It is configured to play music through my amp. It's always been a hit and miss thing from almost day one. Sometimes it tells me I require a paid subscription and sometimes it actually plays the track requested.

Since I have had the opposite experience to yours with my Google Home, I wonder if there might be another issue with the problem you are experiencing with voice detection. For example, do you have any WiFi issues around the wall mounted TV or any "interference" in that location? My living room GH is mounted on a chest of drawers with plenty of space around the unit so as not to block any signal or any microphones (I believe GH has three microphones, more than Amazon Echo). It is located four or five feet away from the TV. The microphones pick up my voice from some distance away and even when there are other sounds such as the TV playing. I have two other Home units around the house---one in the kitchen and one in the bedroom and the voice interaction works perfectly. Incidentally, I bought Google WiFi which uses a mesh network for the two units I have around the house but I have not heard of any voice interaction problems with other friends who have Google Home with other WiFi providers.

As to inconsistency in opening up and playing music from my Google Play library, again I have never experienced any issue. Google has been working with voice and Bluetooth for years and in my opinion, they have nailed both. I confirm both work extremely well with my Google Pixel earbuds too. I can wander off perhaps 100-150 feet away from my Pixel 2 XL and the Pixel Buds Bluetooth works flawlessly with my voice command when playing my music.

This is my room setup - you'll have to excuse the low lighting as I'd just got home. The GH is located in a far from ideal place but it is the only place it can go due to mains trailing sockets under that chest of drawers. My router, a Netgear X4S 7800 is mounted to the right of those drawers.

The GH has just 2 mics, whilst the Echo has a larger array of 6 therefore voice detection was always going to be better on the latter and from my experience it is.

My friends Echo configurations are very similar with their Echo's located just below their wall mounted TV's. So my only two recourses are to do a factory reset, or to investigate (in the GH app) exactly what the device is picking up when I throw a command its way.


Edit: Grrr lost a portion of my reply somehow.

dTGQVzB.jpg
 
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This is by me asking GH directly i.e "Hey Google, play some Phil Collins". It is configured to play music through my amp. It's always been a hit and miss thing from almost day one. Sometimes it tells me I require a paid subscription and sometimes it actually plays the track requested.



This is my room setup - you'll have to excuse the low lighting as I'd just got home. The GH is located in a far from ideal place but it is the only place it can go due to mains trailing sockets under that chest of drawers. My router, a Netgear X4S 7800 is mounted to the right of those drawers.

The GH has just 2 mics, whilst the Echo has a larger array of 6 therefore voice detection was always going to be better on the latter and from my experience it is.

My friends Echo configurations are very similar with their Echo's located just below their wall mounted TV's. So my only two recourses are to do a factory reset, or to investigate (in the GH app) exactly what the device is picking up when I throw a command its way.


Edit: Grrr lost a portion of my reply somehow.

dTGQVzB.jpg

So do you have a paid subscription to Google Play Music or some other source like Spotify? My GH's default to Google Play Music.

Your configuration looks fine to me but you might find the Google Home support page helpful or perhaps a conversation with their Support team?:

https://support.google.com/googlehome/?hl=en-GB#topic=7029677
 
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So do you have a paid subscription to Google Play Music or some other source like Spotify? My GH's default to Google Play Music.

Your configuration looks fine to me but you might find the Google Home support page helpful or perhaps a conversation with their Support team?:

https://support.google.com/googlehome/?hl=en-GB#topic=7029677
I have no sub to GPM at all. I have uploaded all my music library (some 15gb) to my Google Play Music library a good while ago though. I've started using Spotify Free on my GH since the start of the new year and it's been fine with that thus far.
 
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Since I have had the opposite experience to yours with my Google Home, I wonder if there might be another issue with the problem you are experiencing with voice detection. For example, do you have any WiFi issues around the wall mounted TV or any "interference" in that location? My living room GH is mounted on a chest of drawers with plenty of space around the unit so as not to block any signal or any microphones (I believe GH has three microphones, more than Amazon Echo). It is located four or five feet away from the TV. The microphones pick up my voice from some distance away and even when there are other sounds such as the TV playing. I have two other Home units around the house---one in the kitchen and one in the bedroom and the voice interaction works perfectly. Incidentally, I bought Google WiFi which uses a mesh network for the two units I have around the house but I have not heard of any voice interaction problems with other friends who have Google Home with other WiFi providers.

As to inconsistency in opening up and playing music from my Google Play library, again I have never experienced any issue. Google has been working with voice and Bluetooth for years and in my opinion, they have nailed both. I confirm both work extremely well with my Google Pixel earbuds too. I can wander off perhaps 100-150 feet away from my Pixel 2 XL and the Pixel Buds Bluetooth works flawlessly with my voice command when playing my music.

You should really take the time to visit the Google forums - if only to confirm/explain you've got this feature working. To say it's rare for it to work is an understatement, you are the first person I've read about who gets this feature to work.
For the majority of people the issue revolves aaround the free library - so uplaoding your own music.
People try to play their music, however are told they are not subscribed - it is defaulting to a subscription service they don't subscribe to and no amount of messing around with settings help the issue - it's more miss than hit.
If you're telling me you've got a Google Home, a free Google library of music (so stuff you've uplaoded) and no premium Google streaming servcie subscription and you are getting even a 75% success rate (you give me the impression it's closer to 99%) then please take the time to hit those support forums, as you're theonly one.
It's the reason I refuse to buy one of the devices. I've got no intention of buying a subscription when I have literally hundreds of albums uploaded.
 
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You should really take the time to visit the Google forums - if only to confirm/explain you've got this feature working. To say it's rare for it to work is an understatement, you are the first person I've read about who gets this feature to work.
For the majority of people the issue revolves aaround the free library - so uplaoding your own music.
People try to play their music, however are told they are not subscribed - it is defaulting to a subscription service they don't subscribe to and no amount of messing around with settings help the issue - it's more miss than hit.
If you're telling me you've got a Google Home, a free Google library of music (so stuff you've uplaoded) and no premium Google streaming servcie subscription and you are getting even a 75% success rate (you give me the impression it's closer to 99%) then please take the time to hit those support forums, as you're theonly one.
It's the reason I refuse to buy one of the devices. I've got no intention of buying a subscription when I have literally hundreds of albums uploaded.

Let me be clearer than I was. I have a family subscription to Google Play Music. The total monthly cost is £ 15 but the cost is shared with 4 family members so in my view it is really inexpensive for what I am getting. I have never had issues using Google Assistant in either my Pixel 2 XL or Google Home or Pixel Bud earphones to play the music of my choice. Am I surprised that Google favours Google Play Music with its Google Home (and yet it supports Spotify too)? No. When Apple releases its HomePod smart voice speaker this year, I expect Apple will favour Apple Music streaming.

Moreover, I use Google Assistant/Google Home for much more than just music. Google Home controls my Nest Thermostat, my iKettle (smart kettle) and most of my home smart lighting. I expect soon to get a smart doorbell and smart door lock, once they are introduced here and fully native to Google Home. I use Google Home also for Google Search, recipes, as a remote control for playing YouTube or Netflix on my TV and so much more. And from the link I provided yesterday, there are now more than a million things you can do on Google Home and I plan to do more this year.
 
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<snipped> please take the time to hit those support forums, as you're the only one. <snipped>

Quoted as truth @stoofa

I've got a subscription, and even with that, it is absolutely variable in the results it gives when playing back uploaded music (or indeed, even subscription music sometimes).

I uploaded about 200GB+ of songs, nearly 22,000 at last count (all pulled from my own CDs, previously) and pretty much all of it had been tag cleaned and would work perfectly when played locally... evidence here on these forums, and on the Google product support forums absolutely supports the fact it isn't working as the vast majority of us want it to (I'm less affected due to subscription), and playing OUR uploaded songs when WE want it to. For anyone to suggest that it's working perfectly for them is plainly wrong, and goes against all the evidence out there.

To @Em3bbs I'd say no.
 
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Do you have any other interests outside of currently available Google products sesevans?
Google are never wrong under his opinion which is why (no offence to him) I overlook most of his opinions. Someone already looked him up and linked to a site a while back in which you were linked with some kind of PR/Marketing firm. His opinion is heavily biased and most of us already know it. Keep bumping those google product threads to keep them relevant.
 
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Google are never wrong under his opinion which is why (no offence to him) I overlook most of his opinions. Someone already looked him up and linked to a site a while back in which you were linked with some kind of PR/Marketing firm. His opinion is heavily biased and most of us already know it. Keep bumping those google product threads to keep them relevant.
It's a shame as his/her PR noise actually ruins reading the Google threads and isn't it against the forum rules? It would seem fine if he/she contributed to other threads and the Overclockers community in general but they literally only post in new/current Google product threads.
 
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It's a shame as his/her PR noise actually ruins reading the Google threads and isn't it against the forum rules? ....

it sure does.. not sure it's against the rules but if he/she is making a financial gain from PR by having all these posts which have the correct full spelling of google products, then he/she should be making a financial contribution to this site..
 
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it sure does.. not sure it's against the rules but if he/she is making a financial gain from PR by having all these posts which have the correct full spelling of google products, then he/she should be making a financial contribution to this site..
I'm sure there was a similar situation some years ago where 'Vodafone Social Media Response Team' or someone used to come in here, then they were banned because of a forum rule about paid for responses. At least they were open and honest about their posting intentions on the forum though.
 
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My Google home can't even consistently turn on a hive active plug.
When I was using it called "Christmas Lights" it was spot on. However now they're called "Living Room Speakers" and sometimes it'll do it, other times I'm met with "Power controls are not yet supported". Stupid.
 
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My Google home can't even consistently turn on a hive active plug.
When I was using it called "Christmas Lights" it was spot on. However now they're called "Living Room Speakers" and sometimes it'll do it, other times I'm met with "Power controls are not yet supported". Stupid.

I can't comment on hive plugs, but I have a couple of tp-link plugs that I use with lamps and have not experienced any issues, seems to work perfectly.
 
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Google assistant looks to be quite a disappointment and can be added to the list of Google's other failures such as Android Wear, Android on tablets and Google Allo & Duo.

Despite the massive amount of Google assistant advertising at CES, Alexa has completely stole the show with the amount of devices supporting Amazon's AI/Assistant.

The mind boggles that a company who is very much a software company first and foremost can be outplayed at software by a company who is an e-tailer first and foremost. Pichai really needs to have a reshuffle at Google because they're clearly 2nd best to Amazon's offering.
 
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