Google Assistant will have 6 routines at launch with lots of limitations
What can all the Routines do?
-
- Good Morning
- Bedtime
- Leaving home
- I’m home
- Commuting to work (smartphone only)
- Commuting home (smartphone only)
Routines, which enable you to perform multiple Google Assistant actions at once, are rolling out now to the Google Home app.
Using your smartphone and Google Home hardware, you can program multiple actions associated with various parts of your day, like waking up, going to work, etc.
However, the system appears to have a lot of limitations, and some of the features are vague; some trial and error will be needed.
We’ve been hearing about Google Assistant’s routines for months now. Cody first discovered them in a Google app teardown last September, then they were officially announced in October, but Google was mum about them until last month when it said routines will launch “in the coming weeks in the US.” A few weeks have passed since then, so it’s about time we start seeing these routines for real. We haven’t spotted them on our phones just yet, but their support page just went live and now we know almost everything there is about them.
There will be 6 routines to start: Good Morning, Bedtime, Leaving home, I’m home, Commuting to work, and Commuting home. The last two will only be accessible from your phone – you won’t be able to trigger them from your Google Home. The Good Morning routine is replacing the My Day feature when it launches. And routines will be voice-dependent, so you and the other people in your home will be able to trigger your own actions for each one.
That’s, unfortunately, where the good news ends. If you thought that routines will let you trigger any command and action on your Google Home, you might be in for a disappointment. Each routine has a limited set of predefined actions and it doesn’t look like you’ll be able to trigger much in the way of smart home appliances, at least not Assistant apps integrations. So proper Home control devices like lights and thermostats will work, but things like Logitech, Todoist, or others apparently won’t.
Here is the full list of options you have within each routine:
- Good Morning:
- take your phone off silent (only if initiated via an Android device) and adjust the media volume
- adjust lights, plugs, thermostats, and more
- tell you today’s weather, commute, calendar, reminders
- play music or news or radio or podcasts (where you left off) or audiobooks (where you left off)
- Bedtime:
- put your phone on silent (only if initiated via an Android device) and adjust the media volume
- tell you tomorrow’s weather and first calendar event
- set an alarm
- adjust lights, plugs, thermostats, and more
- play music (with a sleep timer) or sleep sounds
- Leaving home:
- adjust lights, plugs, thermostats, and more
- I’m home:
- adjust lights, plugs, thermostats, and more
- broadcast to your Home speakers that you’re home
- tell you home reminders (location-based)
- adjust media volume
- play music, news, radio, podcasts, audiobooks
- Commuting to work (only available on Android and iOS):
- tell you about today’s commute, weather, calendar, reminders
- adjust lights, plugs, thermostats, and more
- adjust the media volume
- play music, news, radio, podcasts
- Commuting home (only available on Android and iOS):
- tell you about your commute
- adjust lights, plugs, thermostats, and more
- send texts and read unread texts
- broadcast to your Home speakers that you’re on the way
- adjust the media volume
- play music, news, radio, or podcasts.
