Google Home: Useful Services
Friday, May 5, 2017
Virtual Assistants and home devices are evolving rapidly. Alexa had a sizeable jump on the market and is doing very well with a huge number of “Alexa Skills”. But Google Home also has capabilities that can be of use to people with disabilities and you don’t have to enable them as you do with Alexa. All you have to do is say, “Hey Google, Talk to (Name of Service) or Control (Name of Service)”. The correct command for use is directly below the name of the service
Everything is voice activated, so potentially any service could be useful to our community. The ones I describe below are a sample.
There are a lot of services and you can review them by opening the Home App on your smartphone, tapping the menu in the upper left-hand corner of the app’s home page, and tapping More settings. Services is down the list.
- CareGeneral: task management and support service specifically designed for home-based care delivery
- Autovoice: You can run customized voice commands using Tasker with this android app
- Control Nightingale: Nightingale is the first smart home sleep system designed to ensure better and more restful sleep.
- Dominos Pizza Order: You can order and track your pizza’s life journey when you have that special hunger
- Harmony by Logitech: Use Harmony to control your TV with voice, channel changing, volume, play and pause, etc.
- World Air Quality Index: How bad is the air around me?
Many services such as information about public transportation is specific to a location, but you might want to try the service, Next Transit to see if there is something around your location.
Obviously, more services will be developed, For more information about the Services available through Google Home, see the Google Home Help page for 3rd party services and apps.There is also a continuously update list of services