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Please, please, please be a completely open, extensible platform... I want to be able to control my Apple TV with my Google Home device. I want to be able to

Please, please, please be a completely open, extensible platform... I want to be able to control my Apple TV with my Google Home device. I want to be able to control my Phillips Hue and LiFX bulbs. I want to be able to build my own custom home automation server endpoints and point my Google Home commands at them. I want to be able to remote start my car with a voice command. I want to be able to control my Harmony remote, and all of the devices connected to my Harmony hub. I want to be able to access my Google calendar. I want to be able to make hands-free phone calls to anyone on my Google contacts. If my grandmother falls, I want her to be able to call 911 by talking to the Google Home device. I want to be able to ask wolfram alpha questions by voice. I want to be able to have a back-and-forth conversation to arrive at a conclusion. I don't want to have to say a perfectly formulated command like, "Add an event to my calendar on Jan 1, 2016 at 2:00 pm titled go to the pool party". I want to be able to say, "Can you add an event to my calendar?", and then answer a series of questions. I hate having to formulate complex commands as a single sentence. I want to be able to have a Google Home device in each room, without having to give each one its own wake-up word. Just have the closest one to me respond to my voice (based on how well it can hear me). I want to be able to play music on all of my Google Home devices at the same time, and have the music perfectly synchronized. This is my wish list. I am currently able to do more than half of these items with Amazon Echo, but I had to do a bunch of hacking and it was a pain in the ass. If Google Home can deliver on these points, I would switch from Amazon Echo in a heartbeat.

supercanuck 10y ago
I would love for it to connect my sonos and my spotify together, rather than having to run a node.js server for the purpose
- surfaceTensi0n 10y ago
  Doesn't sonos already have integration with spotify? Or is that only available if you're paying for spotify?
  - djloche 10y ago
    Correct: it does have a spotify integration, but it is only available for paying spotify customers.
TeMPOraL 10y ago
I have only two wishes: > Please, please, please be a completely open, extensible platform... That's one. The second one is, please make it self-hosted. No cloud bullshit. I know I'll probably never live to see the second one coming true.
- scrollaway 10y ago
  How would you make it self-hosted without making it suck? High quality voice recognition in a small box doesn't seem to be a thing that's even remotely possible today, let alone the query processing and knowledge database that comes with it. You could build this on a pi with a mic, speakers, some foss stt and tts engines and some basic training data. But it'll suck.
  - mbrock 10y ago
    Hey, people with experience in speech recognition, please chime in! Just the other day I was looking at CMU's Sphinx project for speech recognition. It seems quite capable, even of building something like this Google thing, but I haven't tried to actually use it. Large-vocabulary recognition probably needs something better than a Raspberry Pi... so, just use a more powerful CPU. Yes, Google has an incomprehensibly enormous database of proprietary knowledge and information. Good for them! If we want to build a home assistant that doesn't depend on Google, we'll have to make tradeoffs. That doesn't mean it has to suck.
    - CaptSpify 10y ago
      I have an RPI running Sphinx. It's OK, not great. The biggest issue I have is that you have to pre-define commands.
      - mbrock 10y ago
        Your own custom software based on Sphinx? Is it PocketSphinx? I was mostly interested in automated transcription, didn't look much at the live recognition stuff.
oxguy3 10y ago
According to Ars Technica, Google Home is actually gonna be more locked down than Amazon Echo. > Initially, Google says that it will not be creating APIs for Assistant and Home and that as such, any integrations with services and other devices will have to come from Google first. This approach is a contrast with the Echo, which is designed to be extensible. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/05/google-assistant-and-google-home-amazon-echo-but-from-google/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/05/google-assistant-and... Dreams = crushed :(
- supergeek133 10y ago
  If true.... seriously Google?
- danellis 10y ago
  That's not what they said in the keynote. They were explicit about the fact that developers would be able to extend it. They used Uber as an example.
  - ENGNR 10y ago
    I wonder what the point of even announcing it at a dev conference was, save it for CES
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  Initially doing internal integrations, then releasing API access to trusted partners, then making APIs publicly available is how Google has done lots of things. So, I wouldn't be surprised if that's the route Google does with this.
  - capitalsigma 10y ago
    Yeah, I suspect the idea is that "public APIs are forever," especially in hardware. They probably want to be able to collect some real user data, make a few mistakes and get a better idea of what role the product is actually going to fulfill before committing to something that they'll have to maintain indefinitely.
erstorreyk 10y ago
I want subqueries. 1. What's the name of that film that came out around the time of Jane's birthday party, the one with that guy in that I always confuse with Adam Sandler? 2. Where can I go for lunch and sit outside in the sunshine? 3. Play me some music that I'd like but nothing too recent.
dominotw 10y ago
you can do all those with amazon echo by writing your own app.
lowglow 10y ago
Hey can you email/chat with me (info on profile), I'd like to chat more about your use cases!
niutech 10y ago
There is a fully open source voice-controlled platform: Jasper https://jasperproject.github.io/ https://jasperproject.github.io/
tamana 10y ago
The Corporate Integrations Committee will consider these feature request for a future release.
rplnt 10y ago
> If Google Home can deliver on these points, I would switch from Amazon Echo in a heartbeat. I think it will mostly deliver ads.
na85 10y ago
How will the companies trap you into their proprietary walled garden if they let you change the settings?

supercanuck 10y ago

I would love for it to connect my sonos and my spotify together, rather than having to run a node.js server for the purpose

surfaceTensi0n 10y ago
Doesn't sonos already have integration with spotify? Or is that only available if you're paying for spotify?
- djloche 10y ago
  Correct: it does have a spotify integration, but it is only available for paying spotify customers.

TeMPOraL 10y ago

I have only two wishes: > Please, please, please be a completely open, extensible platform... That's one. The second one is, please make it self-hosted. No cloud bullshit. I know I'll probably never live to see the second one coming true.

scrollaway 10y ago
How would you make it self-hosted without making it suck? High quality voice recognition in a small box doesn't seem to be a thing that's even remotely possible today, let alone the query processing and knowledge database that comes with it. You could build this on a pi with a mic, speakers, some foss stt and tts engines and some basic training data. But it'll suck.
- mbrock 10y ago
  Hey, people with experience in speech recognition, please chime in! Just the other day I was looking at CMU's Sphinx project for speech recognition. It seems quite capable, even of building something like this Google thing, but I haven't tried to actually use it. Large-vocabulary recognition probably needs something better than a Raspberry Pi... so, just use a more powerful CPU. Yes, Google has an incomprehensibly enormous database of proprietary knowledge and information. Good for them! If we want to build a home assistant that doesn't depend on Google, we'll have to make tradeoffs. That doesn't mean it has to suck.
  - CaptSpify 10y ago
    I have an RPI running Sphinx. It's OK, not great. The biggest issue I have is that you have to pre-define commands.
    - mbrock 10y ago
      Your own custom software based on Sphinx? Is it PocketSphinx? I was mostly interested in automated transcription, didn't look much at the live recognition stuff.

oxguy3 10y ago

According to Ars Technica, Google Home is actually gonna be more locked down than Amazon Echo. > Initially, Google says that it will not be creating APIs for Assistant and Home and that as such, any integrations with services and other devices will have to come from Google first. This approach is a contrast with the Echo, which is designed to be extensible. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/05/google-assistant-and-google-home-amazon-echo-but-from-google/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/05/google-assistant-and... Dreams = crushed :(

supergeek133 10y ago
If true.... seriously Google?
danellis 10y ago
That's not what they said in the keynote. They were explicit about the fact that developers would be able to extend it. They used Uber as an example.
- ENGNR 10y ago
  I wonder what the point of even announcing it at a dev conference was, save it for CES
dragonwriter 10y ago
Initially doing internal integrations, then releasing API access to trusted partners, then making APIs publicly available is how Google has done lots of things. So, I wouldn't be surprised if that's the route Google does with this.
- capitalsigma 10y ago
  Yeah, I suspect the idea is that "public APIs are forever," especially in hardware. They probably want to be able to collect some real user data, make a few mistakes and get a better idea of what role the product is actually going to fulfill before committing to something that they'll have to maintain indefinitely.

erstorreyk 10y ago

I want subqueries. 1. What's the name of that film that came out around the time of Jane's birthday party, the one with that guy in that I always confuse with Adam Sandler? 2. Where can I go for lunch and sit outside in the sunshine? 3. Play me some music that I'd like but nothing too recent.

dominotw 10y ago

you can do all those with amazon echo by writing your own app.

lowglow 10y ago

Hey can you email/chat with me (info on profile), I'd like to chat more about your use cases!

niutech 10y ago

There is a fully open source voice-controlled platform: Jasper https://jasperproject.github.io/ https://jasperproject.github.io/

tamana 10y ago

The Corporate Integrations Committee will consider these feature request for a future release.

rplnt 10y ago

> If Google Home can deliver on these points, I would switch from Amazon Echo in a heartbeat. I think it will mostly deliver ads.

na85 10y ago

How will the companies trap you into their proprietary walled garden if they let you change the settings?