2018-05-13 01:50:57 (edited by Jeffb 2018-05-13 01:51:39)

Oops sorry I think you have to change the language there's not a separate region setting yet. In the app tap on menu it’s at the top left of the screen. Pick your speaker under the devices section. Then pick assistant language. Try changing that to US English and see if that helps.

Kingdom of Loathing name JB77

2018-05-13 03:09:44

Thanks so much! I did it and it worked...

2018-05-13 06:42:21

Awesome! Glad I could help!

Kingdom of Loathing name JB77

2018-05-13 17:18:35

If you haven't checked recently, you should check out your Google Assistant preferences. There are now eight voices to choose from for your assistant to use, I had been using the male voice, but now I'm using voice 8, it's still a male voice, but I like it better than the original voice 2.

There are no doubt other enhancements, but I don't remember enough from my initial set up to recall what they've added, other than the new voices.

2018-05-13 21:13:00

I think the new voices are just for US English? Although I could be wrong. I did switch to UK English and there weren't any new ones there.

Kingdom of Loathing name JB77

2018-05-13 23:08:30

Very possible, since I use US English. But with the addition of these six new voices, there's hope that more voices for other languages will be offered some time down the road.

2018-05-13 23:26:05

True!

Kingdom of Loathing name JB77

2018-05-22 23:55:33

I learned, or was reminded, of some things today.

The first is that some people are either bald faced liars or they like to talk about things they know nothing about as if they were experts.

While researching what the purpose of the USB C connector on the back of the Google Home Max and Mini is, I found in one Google Home support forum a post by someone that said that you could plug a Chromecast USB to Ethernet adapter into that USB C port to connect your Google Home to your network by wire instead of by WiFi. This would be great except for one minor point. The Chromecast to Ethernet adapter plugs into a micro USB port, not a USB C port like what is on the back of the Google Home Max and Mini.

Then I found in another post to the Google home support forums, a recording of a chat session with Google support regarding that USB C port, and from that learned that that port is not intended to be used by customers. I suspect that that port is how the factory loads the latest version of the devices firmware onto the device without having to set up a WiFi connection. It may also be used for troubleshooting a device too. Oh well, I'll just ignore it then.

I also found out that there is a difference, either in hardware or in iOS behavior, between the iPhone and the iPad. The Google Home app, used to manage your Google Home devices, cannot connect to your Google Home devices via Bluetooth when running on an iPad but do connect with no problem when running on an iPhone.

So far, considering the experiences I've had with my iPad when compared to my iPhone, I begin to understand why there are reports of iPad sales dropping, not to mention that all of Apple's sales figures haven't been encouraging of late. Seems like Apple's vaunted shininess is beginning to wear a little thin.

2018-05-26 22:51:16 (edited by Orko 2018-05-27 03:31:45)

Well, it looks like it's Google's turn to screw up royaly, they have apparently just released a new firmware update for their Google Home devices and introduced a new bug, if you ask it to play a radio station, it will tell you it can't do that here but that you can ask it to play it on one of your other devices.

Seems like all the proof you need to know that nobody tests this stuff before releasing it. unless they simply don't give a damn, a bug this obvious would not have gotten out the door.

--Later--

Well, that's encouraging, the same day it is discovered, Google fixes that bug. If it had been Amazon, we'd have been out of luck for a couple of months at least. They'd only pay attention to it when it starts affecting their sales.

2018-05-27 16:50:05

Now that it's finally available in Canada, I am seriously thinking about investing in one of these! At the end of the day, I think I still like Google Assistant better... lol.

Discord: clemchowder633

2018-05-27 20:53:18

@assault_freak I definitely recommend it I use mine every day!!

Kingdom of Loathing name JB77

2018-05-27 21:16:21

Me too, A google play music subscription and my google Home max have replaced the radio I used to have playing in the background. No more commercials, plus I can tailor the music I'm listening to to match my mood.

The one thing that I'm learning is that the google assistant requires a little more patience than Alexa because Alexa has been around two years longer than the assistant has, and it shows in the variety and quality of the skils that are available.

2018-06-16 02:53:16 (edited by Orko 2018-06-16 02:58:08)

Any Lost in Space fans? For those of you that don't know, Lost in Space was a TV show from the 60s about the Robinson family who got lost in space. The show follows their attempts to find their way back to Earth.

digital trends wrote:

On Friday, April 13, Google Home launched an interactive game celebrating Netflix’s Lost in Space — just in time for the show’s premiere. The reboot of the popular 1960s science-fiction show is powered by Google Assistant, and you can use your Google Home, Google Home Mini, or Google Home Max to provide navigational directions to the show’s characters, who are trying to find their way around a never-before-visited planet after making a crash landing.

In the family-friendly game, users can talk directly to the five members of the Robinson family. All you have to say is, “Hey Google, play the Lost in Space game,” and you will hear audio recordings spoken by the actual cast. You can give Maureen (the mom character) tips on how to escape from the spaceship, help Dad decode hidden messages, and aid Judy in her search for fuel. The Robinson family needs your assistance to get off this planet and return home! There are a variety of mini-games that last just five or six minutes, so you don’t need to set aside a lot of time to experience the world of Lost in Space. You can also play them again and again to experience different endings.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/home/lost … ogle-game/

Enjoy!

2018-06-16 22:57:43

Cool thanks for the info!

Kingdom of Loathing name JB77

2018-06-27 19:03:47

So, did anyone else experience an outage of the Google Home Assistant last night or this morning?

When I got up this morning I found the Max to be completely unresponsive in that it always replied to my "Hey Google" prompt with "A glitch occurred, try again in a few seconds". An hour later it was still doing that, so I unplugged it for a minute, no help. So I did a master reset on it and re set it up. That seemed to get it working again, but it wouldn't stream anything, "An error occurred, try again later". After a half an hour streaming started working again.

Now I wonder if I had needed to do that reset at all.

2018-06-27 19:33:42

Nope working fine here. Maybe it was updating the software? Or wifi issues. That's the only 2 things I can think of.

Kingdom of Loathing name JB77

2018-06-27 20:24:39

The software update is probably the reason as all my other devices that use WiFi were working without issues.

If that it the reason, it would have been nice if it had responded with something like "A software update is in progress, please try again later". Then I'd have known to just leave it alone, as it is now, I probably aborted the software update with my actions while attempting to resolve a problem that didn't exist.

2018-06-27 21:17:40

Yeah good point.

Kingdom of Loathing name JB77

2018-06-28 03:14:47

I follow google on twitter and they said they were having issues, even with the chromecast.

At the time of this post, they say everything should be back up and running.

2018-06-28 03:37:43

OK, so I probably did some set up work I didn't need to, the up side is that most of the settings are in Google's cloud, so once it was reconnected to my account, I was pretty much done.

Life in the fast lane.

2018-06-28 23:56:51 (edited by Orko 2018-06-29 00:24:35)

I just got an email from the Google Home team titled, "What happened yesterday"

You may have noticed a problem with your Google Home yesterday morning. We found a glitch with one of our backend systems and spent the day working hard
to get everyone back up and running. It's frustrating when technology doesn't work the way it should, especially when you're depending on it. We're sorry
that this happened.

There's a fix rolling out to all Google Home devices now. If you're still having trouble, let us know here
<link removed>

Thanks for sticking with us.

- rishi, on behalf of the Google Home team

As I recall, Amazon never apologized or even tried to let anyone know what happened or that the problem has been addressed whenever Alexa went down, and it would go down for a day or more at least once a month. I don't know how long the Google Home Assistant was down because it apparently went down while I was in bed, but after I got up and discovered the Max not behaving properly, the service was back up and running in an hour or two.

---

The mystery of what the USB C port on the backs of the Google Home Max and Mini is solved. While in a chat with google support about yesterday's outage, I asked them and was told that it was for charging devices that use a USB C connection, though I would guess that if you got the appropriate adaptor cables, you could charge other devices too. Since I don't need to use my Max as a charging station, I will just ignore the port.

2018-06-29 02:23:07

Nice!

Kingdom of Loathing name JB77

2018-07-01 19:35:27

So Continued Listening is here! I thought it would keep listening for like 5 minutes or so afterword’s but it seems to just keep listening as if you said Hey Google a second third and so on times. I do like this and you can say stop or thank you to get it to stop listening. To turn it on you have to go into the Google Assistant app and then menu, settings, preferences, continued conversation and turn it on. I think it makes things flow better.


https://9to5google.com/2018/06/21/googl … lling-out/

Kingdom of Loathing name JB77

2018-07-01 20:17:55

Actually that setting is in the Google Home app, but thanks for the tip. I checked mine to make sure it was off, I prefer that it be listening only when I call it, and it's so rare that I'd need continued conversation anyway.

2018-07-01 21:01:54

Mine was in the Google Assistant app as the article said but glad you found it. I turned it on I think its neat!

Kingdom of Loathing name JB77