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1rottenapple

macrumors 601
Original poster
Apr 21, 2004
4,821
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Hopefully this post is allowed given it’s an apple website...

hi any google home users here? I current have a nest thermostat, 4 nest protect smoke detectors, 4 google home mini speakers (I got them for fee lol). I’m pretty happy with the system, and I would like to add smart bulbs outside to turn on and off automatically on a schedule. Can anyone comment on these experience and reliability?

Any issues with disconnecting or not responding?

I prefer something that doesn’t need a bridge.
 
I did check out the google homes this Christmas and I return all of them. They are pretty good tech when they worked. My biggest issue was the routines. They just were too buggy and inconsistent. Some days they worked; other days they worked 2 hours later than programmed. From now on I want agnostic smarthome stuff if I can.

However, if yr looking for reliable lightbulbs- Tplink is yr best bet for google assistant.
 
I did check out the google homes this Christmas and I return all of them. They are pretty good tech when they worked. My biggest issue was the routines. They just were too buggy and inconsistent. Some days they worked; other days they worked 2 hours later than programmed. From now on I want agnostic smarthome stuff if I can.

However, if yr looking for reliable lightbulbs- Tplink is yr best bet for google assistant.
Really. Can you reliably turn the lights on and off reliably.
 
Yes. The lights or smart switches from the Kasa series from tplink work great; it was just the google software particularly the routines that didn’t work. They sell them at Best Buy and amazon if you want to take a look. I think they are adding HomeKit soon too.
 
Do you find HomeKit more reliable with routine?

My home is split right one with HomeKit and google home. I have cheap (free) google home speakers but iPhone and iPads. I love the google mini spreakers and casting podcast and google music library on it.
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I did check out the google homes this Christmas and I return all of them. They are pretty good tech when they worked. My biggest issue was the routines. They just were too buggy and inconsistent. Some days they worked; other days they worked 2 hours later than programmed. From now on I want agnostic smarthome stuff if I can.

However, if yr looking for reliable lightbulbs- Tplink is yr best bet for google assistant.
Did yours need a hub?
 
No hub is required for the Tplink lights - they are independent wifi devices - and I think they announced HomeKit support is coming, so that is good because they are really affordable.

So, yes. Homekit, timed automation always went off without a hitch. If I set the downstairs lights to come on at 6AM, they always came on. You need some kind of a HomeKit hub, like an Apple TV or stay-at-home iPad, but I never had a problem with Siri and telling her to turn on or off things.

My problem was that I bought a house with Nest thermostats, and I stuck with Nest for my doorbell camera - the Hello. So none of that stuff worked with HomeKit. I picked up a few Google Homes and a Google Home Hub (on those crazy Christmas sales) to see if I could just use Google Home for a smart house. I ran into too many headaches and returned almost all of the devices - I kept the Google Home Mini I got from Spotify for a buck, and I picked up a cheap Raspberry Pi for Homebridge for the Nest stuff.

My main problem with the Google Home software is it is more cloud reliant than HomeKit. The Wemo smart plug wasn't working one morning - turns out that it was on Wemo's server's side -nothing I could do about it. Asking Google to turn on the lights mostly worked, but again, every few days I'd get an error message saying Google couldn't communicate. And the big one is Routines - they have a mind of their own and would start and stop at the strangest times. If you google Google Home Routine problems you will find a lot of people complaining about it.

Hands down, the BEST feature of the Google Homes is that multi-room audio playback. My family loved it, and it is a really affordable option - if you have Spotify or Google Music, etc. Google Music is nice, but I ran into other problems with that, since I have an iPhone - CarPlay didn't work so well with Google Music - and that was another problem.

This post is getting a little long - basically I was trying to see if I could leave the Apple ecosystem - and it was a failure. My wife got really annoyed with me for switching things up too. Google's services are great - but they are better if you are more in the Android ecosystem than Apple.
 
Thanks for the feedback!!!!!

Ok I think I’m going to go with home kit then due to reliability with the bulbs.

I still like the google mini speakers given how cheap the device is.
 
Glad I could help. If you are keeping your Google Home Minis, maybe try getting lights that work with both Google Assistant and HomeKit - like Philips Hue (expensive though) or, what I did was get Wemo smart plugs - they work with the three big home automation services - and hooked up my lamps to them.
 
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