2018-07-01 22:31:55 (edited by Orko 2018-07-01 22:40:26)

Actually, I think you have to have both apps running, there's no settings option in the Assistant app that I could find, and it doesn't show up if just the home app is running. Or something weird like that, why google couldn't just put the two together into one app like Amazon did with the Echo, just seems silly.

I may try the continued conversations feature someday, but not just now. Google needs to make the home devices more discriminating about what is and what is not its attention phrase before I'll try that feature. I have the accessibility audio cues turned on and I hear it being triggered all day long when nobody is talking to it or saying "* google".

After what happened to that family with an Echo in Oregon, I prefer to err on the side of caution.

2018-07-02 14:31:05

What happened to them?
I know the guy who was not home and his ecow turned the muxic at max and the cops showed up.

I am myself and noone is ever gonna change me, I am the trolling master!

2018-07-02 15:49:30

That must be a different story. In the story that made the national news that I was referring to, the family was having a private, with a capital P, conversation, unbeknownst to them, the Echo in the room was misinterpreting what it was hearing as commands to record the conversation and send it to one of their contacts, which it did.

Amazon's response was their typical flowery customer privacy is important to us legal disclaimer, and a canned flowery response to improve Alexa's voice recognition to prevent events like this from happening again.

From my own personal experience, the only time Amazon does anything to fix a problem is when that problem affects sales. Otherwise its given a when we have time and feel like it priority.

That was the primary reason aI abandoned them, I was tired of being ignored. Now they can ignore me all they want, because I am no longer a customer!

2018-07-02 16:50:27

I do not know which is better, I do not have any problem with my ecow device, well, I think it has a problem, I ask her about a recipe and she says sorry, this feature is not suported.

I am myself and noone is ever gonna change me, I am the trolling master!

2018-07-04 18:56:18

I've had both an Amazon Echo and a Google Home, and personally I like the Google assistant much better than I did Alexa.

For one thing, Google seems very proactive about fixing problems when they occur, where Amazon doesn't seem to do anything unless the problem affects Alexa's ability to sell you stuff.

For those of you watching these assistants and wishing they were available in your area, you might be getting your wish soon. On the Blind Bargains podcast, they interviewed someone from Google accessibility who said that the Google assistant would be available in 80 countries and in 30 languages by the end of the year. Whether that also includes the Google Home hardware, they didn't say.

2018-07-04 19:16:23 (edited by Jeffb 2018-07-04 20:26:13)

I changed my Google Home's accent to British a while ago and noticed it was lacking in many of the games and features the US voice had. I don't know if they updated it but for some reason it was behind. So if it does come to other countries it will most likely take some time to catch up. Also perhaps a better name for this topic would be Google Home? As others seem to be posting their experiences as well and it might welcome more sharing. Just a thought.

Awesome thanks for the name change!!

Kingdom of Loathing name JB77

2018-08-05 02:12:29

I am giving up on Google Home for the present and will just go back to a radio for now. I have tried everything I could think of to get Google Home to be more discriminating about when it is called and when it isn't with no luck.

It starts listening for commands all day long, often when no one has said anything, much less actually trying to get its attention. And after what happened with the Echo, it makes me rather nervous. At least with both the start and stop accessibility sounds turned on I know when it is actively listening, but still.

I have repeatedly complained to Google about the problem, yet after several months, nothing appears to have been done.

2018-08-05 02:27:58 (edited by turtlepower17 2018-08-05 02:31:05)

Mine does that occasionally, but I solve the problem by turning the mic off unless I want to activate it. Not a reason to give up on it, in my opinion. That probably wouldn't be an acceptable solution for those who use it to control things like smart home devices, true, but for someone like me who primarily uses it to play music and podcasts, trivia games, and ask it for the occasional bit of info like the news or weather, it works for me. It was pretty disconcerting the first time that happened, though.

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just holding half the amount it can potentially hold.

2018-08-05 14:12:07

While that is a solution, doesn't it seem like having to walk over to it to turn on the mikes so you can talk to it defeats the whole idea of voice control? While you are there, you may as well fiddle with the controls on a traditional stereo. Most stereos today have remotes that you can just pocket so you wouldn't have to walk over to it in the first place. Mostly what I do with mine is stream music and get the occasional weather report. I used to use its alarm and timer functions, but after several of them didn't go off when they were supposed to, I quit using those and went back to what I had been using before I started playing with these assistants, it at least has never failed to sound at the appropriate time.

2018-08-05 22:49:16

I mean, sure, but I'm not a fan of the laziness these virtual assistants promote anyway, so I kind of like doing it that way. it reminds me that yes, we did survive without these things before, and we can again. To be fair, I received my Google Home Mini as an early birthday present. I never would have actually bought one for myself. Having said that, there are some cool things that it can do, and I'm grateful to have it, but, no, I don't find it to be a totally essential tool.

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just holding half the amount it can potentially hold.

2018-08-06 01:23:34

Exactly. My first assistant was Siri, but after several months of just playing with it, I eventually just turned it off. That is one of the more irritating features, if you can call it that, in iOS 11, Apple removed the ability to disable Siri, now you have to go in and block Siri's access to everything, one app at a time.

My next assistant was an Amazon Echo, I gave up on it because of the many non ordering related bugs that Amazon was just ignoring.

So now I have a Google Home, I like it better than Siri or Alexa, but it too has problems, like the timers, alarms, and reminders, that don't work, mistaking even silence for the attention phrase, and very skippy voice recognition, that despite plenty of feedback, just don't seem to be getting addressed.

Other than Siri, which I don't count because it's on my phone and I disabled it. I started exploring these digital assistants less than a year ago, and all those years before that I got along fine without them.

The one thing I'll give them is their ability to stream radio stations, my favorite local radio station is a public radio station, so it doesn't have a lot of power and is hard to pick up with a standard radio. It would be nice if I could find a blind friendly internet radio, I switch out the Google Home for it in a heartbeat.

Maybe I'll just do what you are doing and keep the mikes turned off. I wish Google would make a voice remote for their Home devices like Amazon has for the Echos. It's about the size of a large bic lighter so it's easy to put in your pocket. You could turn off the Echo's mikes and it would still respond to the remote, and since the remote is battery powered, it's on and listening only while you are pushing the talk button, and you don't have to get its attention by saying its wake up phrase before giving it a command. It was the ideal way to use the Echo and not have it listening all the time.

2018-08-06 02:46:25

These smart speakers are really fantastic for quickly accessing podcasts and internet radio streams. Orco, if you don't like using the Google Home for web radio, try using OO Tunes on your Victor Reader Stream and/or Trek.

Grab my Adventure at C: stages Right here.

2018-08-06 04:10:42 (edited by Orko 2018-08-06 04:18:45)

I have a Trek, and I'd use it in place of the Google Home for playing radio stations except that the Trek has a problem. I don't know if it's a software bug or a hardware fault, but I've found that if you leave the Trek on for extended periods of time, like playing a radio station all day long, the audio goes south and the TTS voice quits working. So far, the only way I've found to get it working again is to turn it off for 30 seconds or more, then turn it back on. It's been that way since I got it last November, and after several software updates, that and at least one other audio problem that I know of still hasn't been corrected. Considering how little I use the GPS in it, I sometimes wonder if I should have stayed with the Stream.

I've tried the Google Home to listen to podcasts but quickly went back to using the Trek for that because on the Google Home, asking it to rewind or fast forward often resulted in the podcast not playing afterwards, and telling the Google Home to resume playing the podcast just resulted in it telling me that nothing is playing.

2018-08-06 06:02:23

I've had no trouble getting it to resume playing a podcast, but I have noticed an odd bug when streaming music, mostly on Spotify. After a few songs have played, the Google Home stops responding to my voice entirely, and I have to either open the app on my phone and get it to stop playing from there, or go over to the Mini itself and press on it to get it to stop. I do agree that it's the best way I've found to play radio stations, though. I don't know why, but I can get very few stations to come in clearly at my house, so actually, in that regard it's been a godsend. My parents thoroughly appreciate it, too, because of course the stations that come in clearly are the ones that play the crappy top 40 hits, and very little else.

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just holding half the amount it can potentially hold.

2018-08-09 18:30:04

I now just leave the mikes turned off, and only turn them on long enough to give it a command. Kind of stupid if you ask me, it defeats the whole idea of being able to control it from anywhere it can hear you, , but better than having it be triggered on random noise all day long.

I may still look for a reasonably nice home audio system that is blind friendly in that it has physical controls to replace the Google Home with. These smart speakers still have some maturing to do.

2018-08-12 04:24:04

Has anyone else who uses BBC as a primary news source had a problem with getting their Google Home to pull down the latest daily feed? My friend pointed this out to me earlier, and, since I hadn't used it to check the news for a few days, I decided to test it. Lo and behold, he was right, it didn't work as expected. The latest news it wanted to play for me was from last Thursday. I seem to remember this happening with CNET at one point as well, and it resolved itself eventually, but I was just curious why this happens?

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just holding half the amount it can potentially hold.

2018-08-14 01:03:39

I gave up on digital assistants for now. I will keep the Google Home device because of all the digital assistants, I liked Google's the best, but I think I'll give it six months to a year, then try it again to see if things have improved any. For now it's back to a standard radio for background music. I'm going to see if I can find a Vision Free HD radio, it is an HD radio designed for blind or visually impaired users, they were available about six to eight years ago, but aren't being made any more, so I'll have to find somebody willing to part with theirs.

2018-08-14 02:08:31

@Orko I’ve seen you complain about some of the same issues with Google Home before over and over again. I understand these issues are annoying but repeatedly posting about them and covering up other posts with issues that are new isn’t helping others get their issues solved. I also have yet to find a product that works flawlessly 100% of the time every time. Radios with antenna have static, toasters sometimes burn your toast, and so on. If Google Home is not the device you want it to be it likely never will be. It’s going to have its flaws and issues the question is whether or not it is worth it to you to deal with them. For me it is because I love what the speaker provides me and can do. Perhaps you should think about if this is a device you will utilize or not and if not that’s okay. You don’t have to force it to be the product you want but you should understand the products limitations and whether or not Google Home is the product for you.

Kingdom of Loathing name JB77

2018-08-14 04:16:51

The thing is, all technology is going to have bugs, and while those may be dealbreakers for you personally, you come across as being holier than thou when you continuously bring back the topic in order to talk about how you're done with it. I can see how someone could take offense to that. If that's how you feel, no one is saying you have no right to your opinion, but it's kind of crappy to constantly hammer the point home when you've already made the same point a bunch of times before.

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just holding half the amount it can potentially hold.

2018-08-14 05:01:37 (edited by Orko 2018-08-14 16:05:36)

That is your opinion. This thread is for anyone who wants to share their experiences with the Google Home devices and the Google Assistant. So that is what I am doing.

Who are you that you'd think that you have the right to tell me what I can or cannot say? As long as I'm not infringing on the rights of others, or breaking any of this forums rules, nobody has that right, especially not you.

If you don't like my messages, why are you reading them?

2019-02-07 10:12:31

sorry to revive such and old post, but a friend shows methe most exciting and terrifying developments in google duplex and regardless if that did really scare me or amaze me, I am still in shock. What do you think? how far could we have been getting with all of this?

A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station…