Setting up shortcuts and issuing complex commands
STRING ALL YOUR SMART DEVICES TOGETHER WITH SCENES, ROUTINES, SHORTCUTS AND WORKFLOWS.
GOOGLE HOME
THE GOOGLE ASSISTANT is only able to manage a maximum of two commands in a sentence, but by being a little crafty and tapping into its shortcuts feature you can achieve a lot more with much simpler commands. To set up a shortcut simply go to the Shortcuts section in the ‘More Settings’ tab of the Home app and either add one of the popular preconfigured shortcuts or invent one of your own. The feature will require an initiation phrase like “Is someone at the door?” and a series of (or single) target action that is expressed in words: for example, “turn on the front porch light” and “turn on the frontdoor camera”. While you will be limited to just two stringed commands this way, you can set up complex scenarios by pairing common items together and using multiple shortcuts.
Google announced that it would add multi-step Routines in October, a feature that would allow a long string of actions to follow a single shortcut command, but at present we’ve only seen evidence of these being preconfigured regular tasks that allow a little customisation. While we’d definitely prefer to build our own, the first batch of six that arrived in March seem at least vaguely useful. ‘Good Morning’, ‘Bedtime’, ‘Leaving Home’, ‘Commuting to Work’, ‘Commuting from Work’, ‘Commuting Home’ and ‘I’m Home’ fills out the total list of routines that were first made available. Saying the target phrase in each of these routines will trigger a series of customisable actions like turning on the lights, giving you the day’s weather forecast and reading you the headlines, for example. If you’re willing to spend a bit of time customising these routines, you’ll have a serious amount of power in your voice. The setup process is also relatively simple, requiring you to find the Routines section in the Google Home app whilst on your home Wi-Fi. Then chose the actions you want to activate and sync them to the respective smart home devices.
AMAZON ECHO
While Amazon introduced the ‘Follow-Up’ mode in 2018, which allows you to speak a series of commands without breaking them up using a wake word, Alexa also has Routines that will enable you to trigger multiple devices and scenes using single commands. In comparison to shortcuts, the ‘Follow-Up’ process is gruellingly lengthy since you have to wait for Alexa to say “OK” in between each command. That said, it does do away with you having to say “Alexa” before every command and it makes sense for things you don’t expect to do very often. Routines on the other hand are exceptionally powerful and allow you to trigger a series of actions using the one command. To set them up simply head to the Routines section of the Amazon Alexa app, add a trigger phrase and throw in a series of actions to easily create a complex command.
APPLE SIRI
Apple’s Home app is pretty adept, allowing you to create Scenes where a list of actions can be triggered by an event, like you arriving home. This can be initiated by a trigger command to Siri and allows you to connect an unlimited number of individual smart devices that aren’t bound by a room. This is a feature that the Google Assistant still hasn’t
GOOGLE ANNOUNCED THAT IT WOULD ADD MULTI-STEP ‘ROUTINES’ IN OCTOBER, A FEATURE THAT WOULD ALLOW A LONG STRING OF ACTIONS TO FOLLOW A SINGLE SHORTCUT COMMAND, BUT AT PRESENT WE’VE ONLY SEEN EVIDENCE THAT THESE WILL BE PRECONFIGURED REGULAR TASKS THAT ALLOW A LITTLE CUSTOMISATION.
acquired, requiring you to appeal to thirdparty apps to do this for you. To create voice triggered scenes for Siri simply tap the plus icon on the top right of the Home app and select ‘Add Scene’. After naming the Scene, either select from the preconfigured scenarios or create a custom one and add the devices you want to trigger and the specific response you want from each.
MORE COMPLEX COMMANDS WITH IFTTT
Fortunately, Google Home is currently able to perform complex commands by leaning on IFTTT. This third-party custom automation app will allow you to trigger a series of things using a single smart assistant command. The first thing that comes to mind might be connecting your Roomba robot vacuum to your smart assistant, a process that is as simple as connecting your Amazon Echo or Google Home and iRobot accounts to your IFTTT profile and turning on the popular preconfigured suggestion of “OK Google, start Roomba”. IFTTT has been around for years and has built a considerable compatibility list allowing you to integrate almost anything you can think of, from a Fitbit to a Tesla. There is a huge amount of applets available, but even though the company allows developers to string a number of actions to a single command, sadly you’re limited to creating single action applets as an everyday user.
STRINGIFY
The main problem with IFTTT is that it’ll only allow you to have one action per voice command for any applet you build, a limitation circumvented by the slightly less connected but non-bookended automation structure of Stringify. This powerful alternative connects to both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa and will allow you to lace as many actions as you want to a single command. You set up Stringify ‘Flows’ in much the same way as any other automation software: simply create a Stringify account and sync it to the relevant smart speaker and smart home devices. Next ‘Import a flow’ or ‘Create a new flow’ by clicking the bottom right-hand corner of the Stringify app, then add Triggers (with optional conditions, like “after 6pm”) and Activities to your Flow. Stringify actually gives you the option of adding additional actions that will run only after the first actions are completed, adding an impressive level of customisation.
Sure, you can ask Google Assistant to start playing the last show you were watching on Netflix directly through your Chromecast but, with Stringify, you could set up a Flow where the living room lights dim, your TV backlighting strip turns on, the heater springs to life and the last show you were watching begins to play, simply by you saying “Hey Google. Tell Stringify it’s TV time”.
If you happen to have enough gadgets to justify buying one of Logitech’s Elite universal remotes, you could add this to the equation by getting the TV to enable Movie or HDR display settings, tell your receiver to put the cinematic surround sound on, as well as doing all of the above.
APPLE’S HOME APP IS ADEPT AT CREATING COMMANDS THAT TRIGGER A SERIES OF SMART HOME OUTCOMES AND ARE GENERATED BY CREATING SCENES.