Google Homes are great, but they’re not perfect and there are are several things that
they can’t currently do which it would be great if they could. So here are my Top 5
things that Google Home can’t yet do, coming up.
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So, first off if you’re listening to music on one of your Home devices, you can’t transfer
the music you’re listening to to another home device, Chromecast or group. It would
be great if you could say, “OK Google, play this in the Living room as well”, or “OK
Google, I’m moving to the Bedroom” and have it move the music with you.
Secondly, we use our Google Home in the kitchen for setting timers probably more than anything
else! Now we’ve added another Home mini in the living room too, and when we set a
timer for the oven in the kitchen and then sit down to relax with some telly whilst dinner
is cooking, it would be great to be able to ask the Google Home in the living room how
long is left on the timer, but at the moment at least - you can’t do that.
In at number 3 is the lack of audio output or headphone jack on the Google Home. The
echo dot from Amazon has this, so it’s really a shame that the Google Home Mini doesn’t,
especially as Google have just announced they’ve discontinued the amazing Chromecast audio.
Yes, that’s right, you can’t buy the Chromecast audio any more, which means that (at the time
of making this video) you can no longer buy an adaptor to plug into an existing speaker
or HiFi system and be able to cast music to it or have it as part of a group. Let’s
all just take a moment to mourn the passing of a dearly loved friend...
Now that the Chromecast audio is no longer, it would be especially great if the Home mini
could pick up its slack by including a 3.5mm audio output, and if you overlook the optical
output that the Chromecast Audio had, it would in fact be better due to its inclusion of
the Google Assistant, meaning your existing speaker setup would be smart, too.
It is actually possible to modify your Google Home mini to feature a jack output with some
basic soldering. If you’d like me to make a video showing how to do that, give me a
thumbs up and leave a comment below!
Number 4 is another thing that Alexa can do but Google Home can’t, and that’s to be
able to call from device to device within your house and use them like an intercom from
room to room. Yes yes, I’m very lazy and can’t be bothered to walk from the ground
floor right up to the loft sometimes, so we end up broadcasting messages back and forth.
The adverts for the Amazon echo devices show a guy who’s locked himself in the garage
so I don’t know if it’s a patent thing or what, but for whatever reason it’s not
a feature of Google Home.
Last but not least at number 5 it’s perhaps my number one gripe with Google Home and that’s
its lack of integration with G Suite accounts. If you don’t know what G Suite is, you probably
don’t use it - it’s mainly used for work-related Organisation accounts where you use Google
email, or Gmail, with your company’s domain name as well as the other apps like Docs,
Sheets and Calendar. It’s a logical assumption that most people’s meetings and stuff will
be in their work calendars rather than their personal one, so last thing in the evening
or first thing in the morning you’ll want to be told about what meetings you have to
look forward to.
This is even more irritating for me because I also use G Suite for all my personal stuff
too, as I have my paulfp domain name and website, etc., so I end up missing out on some of the
Home’s best features. Sort it out, Google!
So those are my 5 frustrating missing features from Google Home. If anyone from the Google
Home development team is watching this video and you like these ideas, royalty payments
can be made to the address on the channel ;-)
What do you think? Are are there any other things you’d like your Google Home to be
able to do? Share your thoughts in the comments below and I’ll pin my favourite suggestion.
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