If you've just gotten a Google Home Mini, Google Home, or Google Home Max device,
and are now wondering okay great what do I do with this thing? Wel,l this is the
video for you. I'm Josh Teder from 6 Months Later
and here are the top six things you can do with a Google Home device.
Number six, chromecast integration. If you have a chromecast device, you are simply
going to love the integration with the Google Home. If you have a newish TV and
a newer chromecast, you can ask Google to turn on and off your TV and it'll do
this through the chromecast which uses HDMI CEC.
Also, right out of the box you can ask Google to play a specific YouTube video
on your chromecast TV and it'll just do it. Google Home: "Sure, playing Google home review six
months later on YouTube on chromecast from YouTube on TV." You also have the
option to link various streaming service accounts to your Google Home app in the
settings, which will allow you to ask Google to play the latest episode of
Game of Thrones on HBO Go on your chromecast TV, or you could ask it to
play the latest season of the crown on Netflix on your chromecast TV. Lastly, you
can ask Google to play music on your chromecast TV. The only thing you can't
do is add your chromecast TV to a speaker group, like you can with a
chromecast audio device from Google. Number five, my day. With my day, the
Google Assistant will tell you about your upcoming day. It will tell you how
long it will take you to get to work in current traffic conditions and will give
you the day's weather forecasts as well as let you know of any appointments or
events you have on your Google Calendar, as well as follow that up with the
latest news from a variety of sources you can choose from in your Google Home
app settings. Now the way you trigger the my date feature is simply by telling
Google, good morning, good evening, or good afternoon.
You can configure all of these sub features of the My Day feature in your
Google Home app settings under the section "My Day." Number four: reminders,
calendars, and shopping lists. Yeah...okay, I cheated for this number. I crammed three
features into one number, but they are all somewhat related. They all deal with
placing items on a list or calendar. So first let's go ahead and look at
reminders. With your new Google Home device, you can ask it to remind you
where you left a specific item you can come up to
your Google Home device and say: "Remember that I put my wallet on my dresser."
Google Home: "Okay, I'll remember that you said I put my wallet on my dresser." And then when you
can't find your wallet you can simply ask Google: "Where did I put my wallet?"
Google Home: "I remember you told me I put my wallet on my dresser." Now your google home device
can also remind you of a specific thing at a specific time, for example: "Remind me
to have a lightsaber fight with my neighbor tomorrow at noon."
Google Home: "Sure, I'll remind you tomorrow at noon." So that's reminders, let's go ahead and look
at calendars. By default, your Google Home will allow you to create an event on the
calendar associated with the Google Account you used to set up your Google
Home device. You just simply ask Google to schedule a haircut appointment for
7:00 a.m. on Saturday and it'll just go ahead and add that to your calendar. Now
you can also do multiple calendars on your Google home device as well now,
Google added support for this feature a few months ago you can change your
default calendar that you want to schedule things on, in your Google Home
app settings. Lastly, let's look at shopping lists. If you're rummaging
through your fridge in the middle of the night, and realize that you ran out of
pickles or whatever, you can just simply tell Google to add pickles or whatever
to your shopping list. And what Google will do is it will automatically create
a shopping list for you. And then when you're on your phone, at the store, you
can just click shopping lists in the Google Home app settings or go to the
Google Assistant app and just say hey, show me my shopping list and it'll bring
up a checklist of all of the items you've previously told Google to add to
your shopping list. Coming in at number 3, search queries. Since all Google Home
devices have the Google Assistant baked into them, as a user of a Google Home
device you just get to sit back, relax and marvel at the ability of the Google
Assistant to answer most of your search queries. Here are a few examples:
you can ask your Google home about current weather conditions. Google Home: "Right now in
Raleigh, at 66 and cloudy. Tonight it's predicted to be 64 in cloudy." Current
traffic conditions you'd encounter on the way to a specific address. Google Home: "On your
way to Outback Steakhouse, traffic is light as usual. It is five
minutes by car. You can see the full route on your phone." How to spell a
specific word Google Home: "Scrump-dilly-icious is spelled S C R U M P - D I L L Y - I
C I O U S." And general information like when was Star Wars the Last Jedi
released? Google Home: "Star Wars the Last Jedi was released in the United States of America
on December 14th." Or, what was it rated? Google Home: "Star Wars the Last Jedi is rated PG-13."
Now notice that the Google Assistant also understands context, so if you ask
it when was Star Wars the Last Jedi released? And then follow up by asking it
what was it rated? It will still know that you're talking about the movie Star
Wars the Last Jedi. Number 2, smart home control. You can now use your Google Home
device to control various smart home appliances. Everything from your lights,
Google Home: "You got it, turning on 14 things." To your thermostat.
Google Home: "Okay, setting the apartment thermostat to 67 degrees." And even your garage door opener
Google Home: "Okay let's get Next garage. Your garage door should now be opening." You can do so
much with your Google Home devices when they are paired with smart home
appliances and applications. Now if you want to get in on the smart home devices,
and haven't bought anything yet, my recommendation would be to either get a
smart thermostat or a smart light starter kit like the Philips Hue starter
kit. We actually did six months later review on Philips Hue, if you're
interested in that I'll make sure to put a card in this video, click on that. I'll
also have it in the description below. Now coming in as the number one feature
for Google home devices is playing music / podcasts. With your Google Home devices
you now have the ability to ask Google with your voice to play a specific song
or a specific artist from a variety of music services, such as Spotify,
Spotify Premium, Google Play Music Unlimited, and yes there is a free
version of Google Play Music as well. It's basically like Pandora which by the
way you can also use with your Google Home. Now in your Google Home app
settings you can choose which default music service you want your Google Home
to play from when you ask it to play a specific song or artist. Another really
cool thing that I've noticed with the Google Home, is let's say for instance
you don't know the name of a song you sort of know the artist and you know
a lyric from the song. Well in most cases, Google is actually going to understand
what you mean when you ask it to play that song. Here's an example: Me: "play girl
you know I want your love, by Ed Sheeran." Google Home: "Okay, shape of you by Ed Sheeran.
Here it is on Google Play Music." Now not only can you play music with your google
home devices but you can play podcasts, as well as you can listen to radio
stations via Tunein. Now if you have multiple Google Home devices in your
residence or if you have chromecast audio devices, you can group all of these
devices together and create speaker groups in your Google Home app. With
speaker groups you can cast specific media to a group of speakers and walk
throughout different rooms in your residence and the same song will be
playing. Well that's all the time we have for today. If you're new to the Google
Home device family and want to learn even more about the capabilities of your
Google Home device, I highly recommend checking out the various features
updates videos we've done for the Google Home devices. Some of the features we've
already gone over in those videos include, broadcasting, recipe guidance,
making calls from your Google Home, setting timers, setting sleep timers, and
so much more. To access these videos, simply click the cards in this video.
I'll also make sure to put links to all of these features updates videos in the
description of this top six video. If you found this video helpful or know of
someone who just got a Google Home device
feel free to like and share this video with them. Also, be sure to subscribe to
the channel so you stay up to date on all of the latest Google Home device
videos. Until then, thanks so much for watching.
I'm Josh Teder for 6 Months Later.