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Google Home is releasing officially tomorrow, but those who pre-ordered the device and paid for overnight shipping have already started getting the devices. In a bid to make your home more connected, the Google Home speaker has plenty of little things that make using your phone a breeze. We’ve compiled a list of things for you to try with your new speaker.
Google Home can learn about your relationships.
One of the unique features of Google Home’s AI assistant is that it can learn about the people in your life and your relationships with them. For example, saying “Alec is my husband” to the device will associate your contact Alec as your husband. From there, you can say “Call my husband” and the device will know you mean Alec.
Say good morning.
Greeting Google Home with a “good morning” command does more than just make you feel better. The device will give you a run down of everything you have on your agenda today, followed by a weather report and a list of current news events. Pretty nifty for catching up while you pour a cup of coffee in the morning.
Send messages to your contacts.
One of the irritating things about modern messaging is that most people you know are spread out across several places. Maybe you keep your DnD friends on Telegram while most of your family is on Hangouts. Maybe you like talking to people using WhatsApp over Facebook Messenger. No matter your communication poison, Google Home likely supports it.
All you have to say is “send a message to (contact name) using (messaging service).” The speaker then prompts you to dictate your message so it can send it.
Add items to your shopping list easily.
Google Keep is a great way to keep track of items you need to pick up at the store, thanks to location-based notifications and the ability to share notes with others on the service. Now it’s getting even better with Google Home. Instead of firing up the app and typing in what you need while you rummage through your kitchen you can just say, “Add (item) to my shopping list” and it’ll appear there.
Google Home can skip songs you hate.
Listening to Pandora or Spotify and a song you hate comes on? With Google Home you can just say “Skip this Song” and the device will skip the song. Right now this is confirmed to work with Pandora, Spotify, and Google Play Music but the command likely works with any music service on your phone.
Funny Easter Eggs
Google hired writers who have worked for Pixar and The Onion, so you can bet some of the Easter Eggs found in Google Home are pretty great. Here’s a quick list of things to try on the device, courtesy of Wonder HowTo.
- I’m Feeling Lucky
- Give me a random number between (x) and (y)
- Roll a (number)-sided dice
- Wubba lubba dub dub
- Beatbox
- Sing a song
- Read a poem
- Tell me a joke
- Sing Happy Birthday
- Do you like Star Trek or Star Wars?
- Up, up, down, down, left, right, B, A:
- Do you speak Morse code?
- Here comes dat boi
- What am I thinking right now?
F@*k You, Google Home
Inevitably you’ll run into problems and get frustrated with Google Home. It happens. I’m not proud of it but I’m sure Google has a recording of me cursing profusely at Google Now on my device. In fact, they’ve probably got so many recordings of people cursing at Google Now they’ve already built a contingency plan for Google Home.
If you tell Google Home “f**k you” Cee Lo Green style, the device offers to submit a bug report for the issue you’re experiencing. Sort of helpful in a frustrating moment for sure.
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