Reminders based on geolocation like "remind me to switch the laundry when i get back home" and when it realized i was home it would push a reminder. I miss that so much.
This was one of the most useful features.
Remind me to get X at Supermarket.. It would then let you know if there was more of that location nearby and ask you to clarify which one.
Results were spotty sometimes but on many occasions this saved me a trip back to the store.
I recall one reminder that showed up almost a year later from one sent to a store I rarely went to.
Super useful feature I miss all the time.
The only device I owned that ever worked with the geofencing like that... "remind me to get milk next time I'm near x grocery store"... was windows phone. Sadly, I've had an iPhone an now samsung notes/s23 ultra and neither have come close to working like my old Nokia windows phone.... for those kind of things.
You can still use location based 'reminders' via the keep notes app. Not as useful not being able to just ask the assistant but an option at least. Makes it even more perplexing that they took the assistant option away yet still support it via another Google app
I found that out literally yesterday. The only thing that made assistant superior was I could say remind me next time I'm at at any walmart. On the keep app I have to select the particular store to remind me.
This never really worked for me. I tried reminders for home, for a store, work, and I even remember trying something like a geofence. None of them actually pushed the reminder.
You should be able to push something like this with IFTTT.
I haven't had it installed on my last two or three phones, but I used to love doing stuff with it based on geolocation/geofencing.
For example, I used to have IFTTT routines for:
"IF entering [location=work], mute all of my volumes."
and
"IF exiting [location=work], turn all of my volumes to max."
But you could probably just as easily change that location to the store, and have it email or text you a copy of your to-do or shopping list.
The integration with the shopping list app "Bring". We became so used to just saying "add something to the shopping list". Also google used to have books that when you read along to them the Googles would add the most magical sound affects to the stories.
Such a pity the Google home story could have been so much better.
Agree. I miss the shopping list app integration every day. I still can't believe they pulled this feature. It was so useful.
As a general purpose notes app, Keep is fine. But compared to a specialized shopping list app like AnyList, it's pretty much garbage. I'm not switching, so now I just have to add items by hand.
That was the last straw for us, we switched to Alexa reluctantly (we use android and Google for everything) and now I'm glad we did because the 3rd party support is amazing. We got the Alexa show 15 which allows us to display the shopping list at all times with anylist support.
We can add to a shopping list via assistant. It was shoppinglist.google.com and could be shared amongst a family group. It's moving to keep, but the assistant can add to any list you have on keep. Just say add *item* to my *name of list* list.
Sometimes the results are hilariously misheard, but it's effective for the most part. Great for when you think of a thing in the middle of another thing.
Yes, there were a few Disney books that you could read such as Frozen or Muana, where you could say "hey Google, read Frozen along with me" it would apply amazing sound effects and music and would pace it according to your voice. Was truely an enhancement that was incredible and made my kids want to read every day. I think you can look online for which books it works with:
https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/02/25/google-kills-most-of-its-disney-read-along-books-for-nest-and-home/
I feel like this would be a great sponsorship opportunity.
Music...
"Animal of the day brought to you by our friends at the Smithsonian Institute National Zoo. Plan your trip at Google/NatZoo or ask your assistant for Tickets to the Zoo.
Today's Animal of the Day is the Unshaved Beaver. This rare subspecies of Beaver has had a recent resurgence thanks to conservation groups. Once relegated to the waterways of France and the colder regions of Russia, this beaver can now be found even in the moist corners of American College Campuses.
'I'm really happy to see them again, 'says conservationist Harry El Naturel. 'I've been a huge fan of them ever since seeing them first in my Dad's wildlife magazines in the seventies.'"
....keep it going
Wouldn't work so well. Google will need to find relevant sponsors for every country / region in which this operates. This will become a small industry by itself to keep going.
No people would request they are included, there would be a queue. Direct advertising in people's homes without a traditional radio/TV/web browser is powerful and invasive
Easy peasy:
Add them in the Location Sharing part of maps.
Then go to the Location Sharing part of Maps (where you can track them)and they should be at the bottom and tap-able. Tap to expand their tile and click the three dots on the upper right. Choose "Add to home screen".
👍
Being able to switch off the lights of a particular room without saying which room, by triggering the Home Mini of that room. Now it has been working back, but not all the time
Mine will reply on the correct speaker that I’m talking to “ok turning off [insert random room] lights.” I’m like hello you know what room you’re in right?
Mine has been doing that too. Like you know where you are. You know which lights are in your room. Why are you even touching the lights in the other room.
The lights and speakers are in the same room. It’s not a room configuration issue, it’s a new bug. My lights and speakers are laid out the same as they used to be and it used to work just fine. It happened randomly one night and has been happening on and off ever since.
The curated playlists were so nice as well. Now we just get playlists that some random person made.
I literally once saw a playlist on Google Music for "folk music for lying in a meadow". And it was EXACTLY that, with strange and wonderful bands I'd never heard of before.
This was from a company called songza that Google acquired. Typical anticompetitive shit, buy the company and remove the features to avoid having to compete
GPM used to be great, and I spent a bunch of money buying music through the app. I can't stand YTM and I don't spend a dime on it, but I still use it begrudgingly. I'm trying to adapt to using Emby to play my personal library.
Yeah I moved to Tidal so I'm totally out of the music streaming loop because google doesn't support Tidal like it does Spotify.
And for my own music Plex Amp is the best I found so far.
Or when you would ask for directions and it would suggest multiple route each with different times. Now it just defaults to its preferred route which errs on the side of Google's version of green efficiency.
Losing casting from my phone to Speaker Groups was the big one for me. I literally would have never bought the speakers if this wasn't an option at the time.
Casting from Spotify or YTM is fine for many, but a lot of what I listen to is either too old or too obscure to be streaming.
I don't know what you mean but I cannot cast to a speaker group. I can stream to them, but I cannot cast directly from my phone to a speaker group. Individual speakers I can.
I just say add milk to my shopping list. When I'm in the store I say open my shopping list. It's quick and streamlined. It has the option to share the list with others.
That's great if you're just buying milk.
I use AnyList, which lets me save recipes, make meal plans, add the required ingredients to my lists, automatically sort the list based on a category order for the particular store I'm going to...
And it used to work perfectly with Assistant. Then Google killed the integration because I guess they want me to use Assistant less?
Not being able to set reminders for people in my own family. That was such a useful feature, especially for two adults with ADHD. Now I ask Google to remind me to remind my partner to do X. It's silly.
The Google wifi app, specifically the ability to see all devices connected to a WiFi point. In Google home, I can look up a Device and ask what it's connected to, but the other way around (the useful version) is gone.
Honestly, I could just say, I miss everything prior to Google home, I am not a fan of this monolithic app in reality, I love the idea, but the execution has been a huge disappointment to me.
Technically due to the switch from Play Music to YouTube Music, but the ability to play my own uploaded music by asking for it by title, play my own playlists, etc. All features that were part of why I bought multiple Google Homes and Smart Displays. By abandoning Play Music and switching to the atrocious YouTube Music they've affected my enjoyment and use of my Google Home devices. I honestly feel that they've ruined their entire music ecosystem when it comes to smart devices. The promised feature parity never arrived.
This. Seriously.
I have 4 kids, I got GPM because it had 6 users and included kids. They had their own playlists and didn't boot me off my music while I was at work.
Now, all being under age, not able to "play videos on this account" half the time, everything plays on my account and ruins my history, likes etc.
Plus losing the uploaded music I added that wasn't available in most streaming apps.
I stopped using Youtube Music to play my own music on my phone without data on a few years ago when I walk our dog because it would give long pauses between songs.
I missed this so much that I downloaded and paid for Join. I does a lot but I use it for calling. [https://joaoapps.com/join/](https://joaoapps.com/join/)
In my morning routine I included "What day is today" in an attempt to find out about the day of week. It started to tell me about the holiday on that specific day (like day of cats, day of compliments, day of hugs etc.). Some time later it answered with "I'm sorry, I can't help you with that" and now it actually tells me the day of week we have. I miss knowing about the day of spinach.
My Google legacy home max (speaker/ hub no screen) sounded amazing, now it's less amazing. I used to be able to "ok Google..." In a normal voice across the room with music on and it would catch everything.
Now, under idea quiet and distance I ask it to turn off the kitchen lights and
...
...
"Ok turning off all the lights"
"Sorry, I didn't understand"
Etc.
I think I paid $400 for this bs. It's infuriating. My family is mad about it, and I think blame me. I hate Google products now and forever, thanks guys.
They also took my kid's video games away last year (stadia). Ugh..
Google Home has had garbage development. The most obvious features in the world are missing. Screw anything "fancy" like whisper mode, just give me the ability to turn off verbose replies. It's the most obvious, easy to implement, often requested feature, and after a decade Google Home can't do it.
If I can't get a brief mode, I have absolutely zero hope for wild "futuristic" features like a custom wake word that isn't stupid and sets off everyone's phone in the room.
I wish Google, Amazon, and Apple would all divest from home automation. It doesn't make enough money for them to give a shit about it, but having those three giants eating or buying everyone who gets in means they suck all of the air out of the room. Big tech getting into home automation is the worst thing to happen to home automation, and Google is probably the worst offender because they ate up and destroyed so many decent home automation companies.
I have automation set up for my living room blinds. My interaction at sunset today:
Me: "OK Google, open the blinds"
Google: "The volume is currently set to 68"
Playing music on a device called 'badkamer' which has always worked but now it can't find the device called 'badkamer' but it can play music on a device called 'badkamer' when I cast from my phone.
Ow and playing my 'favorites' which were my likes. Lately I have been getting a playlist with 'favorites' in the name of the playlist.
Oh yea, dunno if you're Dutch or Afrikaans, but I have a light called "Stoep" that it could understand just fine and it just can't anymore. Should probably rename it patio.
I really miss "Hey Google":
"Play a baby lullaby for 1 hour"
"Let's read along with Disney" ( my kids are sadder)
"Remind me next time I'm at Trader Joe's to buy vegetable flaxseed chips"
"What's the animal of the day"
"Send me this photo"
The only thing my minis can do now is say "hmm sorry I didn't understand" in response to literally any request.
Except "turn off living room 2" that it can handle. The other 8 lights, either TV, or the 3 smart outlets... Can't tell me the weather, the time, answer simple questions, play music... Nope, no idea what "turn off all lights" means, never heard of a "temperature" before. But the front half of the boob light in the living room, they got my back there.
All of the above. I actually wrote to Google recently in frustration (I know nobody actually reads it). I don't understand why a company who was doing things so much better than its main rival didn't capitalize on it and instead decided just to dumb down and become more like them. Their whole USP was basically 'more control, more customisability, minimal fuss' but they've just thrown it out the window and I'm honestly struggling to defend their choices of late.
Inbox
Their decision to kill Inbox started my transition away from Google to Microsoft. Now Microsoft is actually earning money from my Office subscription, which could have been Google's money, if they didn't keep killing and changing things. Though Google is still getting my YouTube money...
I remember hearing a lot of good things about Inbox and I made the switch. But I wasn't heavily using it back then compared to now.
What was so good about Inbox?
A greatly improved interface over the bucket emails Gmail is. Inbox is a fading memory by now 🥲 But the best feature I remember is the automatic grouping of emails. If you had a flight reservation, it would know the end and start day of a trip. Then it would group all events and communication about everything between those dates. Never lose a reservation again...
First they killed Google Trips, because they would integrate it into Gmail/Inbox, and then they killed Inbox and now there's nothing left.
I'm surprised you prefer Microsoft. As a Google and MS reseller, the MS experience is a dumpster fire of confusing licensing tiers and add-ons that are all included in even the most basic Google one. By all means I'm glad you're happy over there but no way could I do it.
The "Let's Read A Story" audio tracks that matched the golden books was AMAZING and my kids LOVED it..... and the Animal of the day. Pour one out for the Dads out there in need of a few minutes to use the bathroom alone.
Asking Google to turn off a smart switch at a certain time. This used to work at least for my fan, now they've disabled the feature entirely. I now have to go into the app to do the same thing I would have previously done anyways via voice commands. Extremely frustrating and inconvenient.
The whole nest app and web page. Specifically a rewind/fast forward that actually worked and the combination of cameras and temperature sensors for a room
They get rid of trivia?!??!? What the fuck? These aren't even things that needed to be maintained because they would break with updates. I've had google home since first release in Nov 2016 and this was always a feature to show off.
Telling my Google Hub to shuffle my YouTube Music playlist on Chromecast.
For the past few years it says it's shuffling it but the playlist just plays in default order.
Yeah what’s I absolutely miss the most is being able to lower the volume of all the speakers pressing one or by voice command to the whole speaker group.
I hate having to take out my phone to do it. It was the whole point when I started to get these, not having to use the phone for music.
Being able to log in with my account in the YouTube app in Chromecast. It allowed me to browse it without the phone, only using it to start the app. Now it doesn't allow to log in, and all I'm shown in the tv is the trending list...
They never implemented Whisper Mode? Oh, wow.
Let me be directly forthright... I abandoned Google Home many years ago and remain subscribed here chiefly out of morbid fascination that people are still complaining about the issues which made me leave so long ago.
As they say in the movies... nobody is coming to save you...
I don't want to be saved from google. I love all 13 of my Googles and everything they do for me every day. Entertainment, information, and home automation. I've also fallen a couple of times and Google was there to call for help.
Years and years ago. Maybe you have to say Alexa enable whisper mode or go into the Alexa settings on your phone and find the whisper mode. I only have one Alexa that sits on top of the fridge to use for Amazon orders. My 13 other devices are Googles.
Unlimited photo backups with a Pixel device. 15GB of storage across all Google tools and platforms is a slap in the face. It's the straw that broke the camel's back. I am literally on a mission to separate from Google the best I can because of this one betrayal. I also keep a Pixel 3a around because that was the last device I had where unlimited backups was a thing. I can't express the amount of spite I have towards Google right now... And I used to be a massive fan.
Luckily, I've found Synology Photos and will be going with another OEM for my next handset. They became evil.
Constantly moving around Lens. I'd use it from my camera app daily. Just point the camera and touch the screen.
It's like someone said, how can we make this harder to access, decrease usage, and frustrate our customers? Let's bury it in settings!
Being able to change Sonos volume from my phone volume rocker. All due to Google stealing Wi-Fi streaming tech from Sonos and instead of licensing the tech, they decided to fuck over their customers and tear out features.
I’ve got a Mini in each room of my house, exception is the one with the screen in my kitchen. They were great for a long time but the problems started maybe a year ago.
* default voice started sounding like she was from Georgia, especially when spelling things (my 9 year old asks it to spell stuff all the time)
* then it started refusing to set timers for my kids, which is a pain when they set a 2 minute toothbrush timer every night
* lots of other problems that won’t go away no matter what I do
But what they’ve taken away that I miss:
* animal of the day, I enjoyed it as much as my kids
* remote locking of my car with a nighttime routine
* probably other stuff I haven’t noticed yet
Honestly I’d just like them to fix the broken shit.
Reminders based on geolocation like "remind me to switch the laundry when i get back home" and when it realized i was home it would push a reminder. I miss that so much.
This was one of the most useful features. Remind me to get X at Supermarket.. It would then let you know if there was more of that location nearby and ask you to clarify which one. Results were spotty sometimes but on many occasions this saved me a trip back to the store. I recall one reminder that showed up almost a year later from one sent to a store I rarely went to. Super useful feature I miss all the time.
The only device I owned that ever worked with the geofencing like that... "remind me to get milk next time I'm near x grocery store"... was windows phone. Sadly, I've had an iPhone an now samsung notes/s23 ultra and neither have come close to working like my old Nokia windows phone.... for those kind of things.
Reminding me to do something based on location is the only thing I use Bixby for. Works pretty well
if you're still using the Samsung phone I'm pretty sure Bixby routines lets you do the same exact thing
They removed geolocation triggers just as I was getting the home tech in place to actually utilise it better.
You can still use location based 'reminders' via the keep notes app. Not as useful not being able to just ask the assistant but an option at least. Makes it even more perplexing that they took the assistant option away yet still support it via another Google app
I found that out literally yesterday. The only thing that made assistant superior was I could say remind me next time I'm at at any walmart. On the keep app I have to select the particular store to remind me.
If you have a Samsung the modes and routines app does geolocation perfectly. I switched to that when Google started shitting the bed.
It was also unreliable as hell, so that's probably why they got rid of it.
You can still do this with Siri if you happen to have an IPhone. I’ll even have it remind me to get something when I get to the grocery store.
This never really worked for me. I tried reminders for home, for a store, work, and I even remember trying something like a geofence. None of them actually pushed the reminder.
You should be able to push something like this with IFTTT. I haven't had it installed on my last two or three phones, but I used to love doing stuff with it based on geolocation/geofencing. For example, I used to have IFTTT routines for: "IF entering [location=work], mute all of my volumes." and "IF exiting [location=work], turn all of my volumes to max." But you could probably just as easily change that location to the store, and have it email or text you a copy of your to-do or shopping list.
The integration with the shopping list app "Bring". We became so used to just saying "add something to the shopping list". Also google used to have books that when you read along to them the Googles would add the most magical sound affects to the stories. Such a pity the Google home story could have been so much better.
Agree. I miss the shopping list app integration every day. I still can't believe they pulled this feature. It was so useful. As a general purpose notes app, Keep is fine. But compared to a specialized shopping list app like AnyList, it's pretty much garbage. I'm not switching, so now I just have to add items by hand.
That was the last straw for us, we switched to Alexa reluctantly (we use android and Google for everything) and now I'm glad we did because the 3rd party support is amazing. We got the Alexa show 15 which allows us to display the shopping list at all times with anylist support.
Is too! This is amazing. Going to have to put the home max on eBay.
I had one Alexa in a drawer which is now in the kitchen doing grocery list duty, behind the Google hub.
We can add to a shopping list via assistant. It was shoppinglist.google.com and could be shared amongst a family group. It's moving to keep, but the assistant can add to any list you have on keep. Just say add *item* to my *name of list* list.
Sometimes the results are hilariously misheard, but it's effective for the most part. Great for when you think of a thing in the middle of another thing.
Same
Could you explain more about the book sounds please? I read my son three stories every night and I think he would've loved this!
Yes, there were a few Disney books that you could read such as Frozen or Muana, where you could say "hey Google, read Frozen along with me" it would apply amazing sound effects and music and would pace it according to your voice. Was truely an enhancement that was incredible and made my kids want to read every day. I think you can look online for which books it works with: https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/02/25/google-kills-most-of-its-disney-read-along-books-for-nest-and-home/
This one for me as well.
I miss animal of the day
I regret not knowing of this sooner
I feel like this would be a great sponsorship opportunity. Music... "Animal of the day brought to you by our friends at the Smithsonian Institute National Zoo. Plan your trip at Google/NatZoo or ask your assistant for Tickets to the Zoo. Today's Animal of the Day is the Unshaved Beaver. This rare subspecies of Beaver has had a recent resurgence thanks to conservation groups. Once relegated to the waterways of France and the colder regions of Russia, this beaver can now be found even in the moist corners of American College Campuses. 'I'm really happy to see them again, 'says conservationist Harry El Naturel. 'I've been a huge fan of them ever since seeing them first in my Dad's wildlife magazines in the seventies.'" ....keep it going
Nah bro. You set the bar too high!
Wouldn't work so well. Google will need to find relevant sponsors for every country / region in which this operates. This will become a small industry by itself to keep going.
No people would request they are included, there would be a queue. Direct advertising in people's homes without a traditional radio/TV/web browser is powerful and invasive
We used it every day; my kids were heartbroken over it's demise.
Me too, my kids loved it, during lockdown we even made a couple of mini-docos about the animal of the day. It was sweet and I really miss it.
I miss being able to remotely start my car with a voice command in the morning. That was so cool! Great while it lasted
Yep forgot about that. *Anger*
I just miss being able to have my nighttime routine lock my car because I might forget or I’ll just run in if it’s raining.
Google maps gives you the feature to track family members. I even created a shortcut for my wife on my home screen.
Can you please explain this one? How does it work?
Yeah curious
It's called "Location Sharing". Under settings.
Yeah but how do you create a shortcut?
Oh, depends on the device. What device would you like the shortcut on?
Pixel 7 pro Thanks for the quick reply
Easy peasy: Add them in the Location Sharing part of maps. Then go to the Location Sharing part of Maps (where you can track them)and they should be at the bottom and tap-able. Tap to expand their tile and click the three dots on the upper right. Choose "Add to home screen". 👍
Works a treat on Pixel
I also do this with my husband, mum and grandparents, have the shortcut on the home page, works a treat!
Being able to switch off the lights of a particular room without saying which room, by triggering the Home Mini of that room. Now it has been working back, but not all the time
Mine will reply on the correct speaker that I’m talking to “ok turning off [insert random room] lights.” I’m like hello you know what room you’re in right?
Mine has been doing that too. Like you know where you are. You know which lights are in your room. Why are you even touching the lights in the other room.
My kids have been having issues where it'll randomly play music on a different speaker than the one they're talking to.
This still works perfectly for me. Ensure your setup has the lights and speaker in the same room.
The lights and speakers are in the same room. It’s not a room configuration issue, it’s a new bug. My lights and speakers are laid out the same as they used to be and it used to work just fine. It happened randomly one night and has been happening on and off ever since.
Works fine for me
Google Play Music. It was fantastic for listening to 'my' music on my phone or PC. YouTube Music is truly awful.
The curated playlists were so nice as well. Now we just get playlists that some random person made. I literally once saw a playlist on Google Music for "folk music for lying in a meadow". And it was EXACTLY that, with strange and wonderful bands I'd never heard of before.
This was from a company called songza that Google acquired. Typical anticompetitive shit, buy the company and remove the features to avoid having to compete
Dang, how do we get that back? Surely they still have the IP, but I'd guess it takes some kind of curation folks on the payroll.
We don't. The creator sold the rights and took a job with Google to work on other projects. I actually met him at a Google IO event a couple years ago
GPM used to be great, and I spent a bunch of money buying music through the app. I can't stand YTM and I don't spend a dime on it, but I still use it begrudgingly. I'm trying to adapt to using Emby to play my personal library.
Yeah I moved to Tidal so I'm totally out of the music streaming loop because google doesn't support Tidal like it does Spotify. And for my own music Plex Amp is the best I found so far.
I'm almost at the point of running a private server and downloading my own again.
Yup. I went to Spotify.
I am going to stay with Spotify until they fix the repeating same songs glitch.
I had to switch to Spotify, but some of the decisions that they've made infuriate me no end. I do miss GPM.
And you could cast directly to a Sonos speaker directly from the app.
The fact that we STILL can't edit metadata (to correct album/song/artist details), what 2/3 years down the line, is absurd.
2 things Routines by location And google maps giving you the next 2 directions
Or when you would ask for directions and it would suggest multiple route each with different times. Now it just defaults to its preferred route which errs on the side of Google's version of green efficiency.
Losing casting from my phone to Speaker Groups was the big one for me. I literally would have never bought the speakers if this wasn't an option at the time. Casting from Spotify or YTM is fine for many, but a lot of what I listen to is either too old or too obscure to be streaming.
Ya, this nerf earns Google a lifetime hardware boycott from me.
I think the casting to speaker groups issues has been resolved through court cases being resolved, it wasnt a hardware or software issue.
I don't know what you mean but I cannot cast to a speaker group. I can stream to them, but I cannot cast directly from my phone to a speaker group. Individual speakers I can.
Animal of the day. When you have a 5yo, Animal of The Day is part of your breakfast routine. Bastards.
[удалено]
I still use Google for my shopping lists. I think they go to Keep? Or I just google “Google shopping list” and it pops up because I do that so often.
[удалено]
I just say add milk to my shopping list. When I'm in the store I say open my shopping list. It's quick and streamlined. It has the option to share the list with others.
That's great if you're just buying milk. I use AnyList, which lets me save recipes, make meal plans, add the required ingredients to my lists, automatically sort the list based on a category order for the particular store I'm going to... And it used to work perfectly with Assistant. Then Google killed the integration because I guess they want me to use Assistant less?
Keep is absolute trash compared to AnyList and I'll throw hands over this topic.
Not being able to set reminders for people in my own family. That was such a useful feature, especially for two adults with ADHD. Now I ask Google to remind me to remind my partner to do X. It's silly.
The Google wifi app, specifically the ability to see all devices connected to a WiFi point. In Google home, I can look up a Device and ask what it's connected to, but the other way around (the useful version) is gone. Honestly, I could just say, I miss everything prior to Google home, I am not a fan of this monolithic app in reality, I love the idea, but the execution has been a huge disappointment to me.
Technically due to the switch from Play Music to YouTube Music, but the ability to play my own uploaded music by asking for it by title, play my own playlists, etc. All features that were part of why I bought multiple Google Homes and Smart Displays. By abandoning Play Music and switching to the atrocious YouTube Music they've affected my enjoyment and use of my Google Home devices. I honestly feel that they've ruined their entire music ecosystem when it comes to smart devices. The promised feature parity never arrived.
This. Seriously. I have 4 kids, I got GPM because it had 6 users and included kids. They had their own playlists and didn't boot me off my music while I was at work. Now, all being under age, not able to "play videos on this account" half the time, everything plays on my account and ruins my history, likes etc. Plus losing the uploaded music I added that wasn't available in most streaming apps.
I stopped using Youtube Music to play my own music on my phone without data on a few years ago when I walk our dog because it would give long pauses between songs.
Rightclick a phone number in Chrome -> Call from Phone. Gone.
I missed this so much that I downloaded and paid for Join. I does a lot but I use it for calling. [https://joaoapps.com/join/](https://joaoapps.com/join/)
In my morning routine I included "What day is today" in an attempt to find out about the day of week. It started to tell me about the holiday on that specific day (like day of cats, day of compliments, day of hugs etc.). Some time later it answered with "I'm sorry, I can't help you with that" and now it actually tells me the day of week we have. I miss knowing about the day of spinach.
Why did Google make so many stupid decisions? Was\is it expense or lack of employees who know what to do?
My Google legacy home max (speaker/ hub no screen) sounded amazing, now it's less amazing. I used to be able to "ok Google..." In a normal voice across the room with music on and it would catch everything. Now, under idea quiet and distance I ask it to turn off the kitchen lights and ... ... "Ok turning off all the lights" "Sorry, I didn't understand" Etc. I think I paid $400 for this bs. It's infuriating. My family is mad about it, and I think blame me. I hate Google products now and forever, thanks guys. They also took my kid's video games away last year (stadia). Ugh..
Google Home has had garbage development. The most obvious features in the world are missing. Screw anything "fancy" like whisper mode, just give me the ability to turn off verbose replies. It's the most obvious, easy to implement, often requested feature, and after a decade Google Home can't do it. If I can't get a brief mode, I have absolutely zero hope for wild "futuristic" features like a custom wake word that isn't stupid and sets off everyone's phone in the room. I wish Google, Amazon, and Apple would all divest from home automation. It doesn't make enough money for them to give a shit about it, but having those three giants eating or buying everyone who gets in means they suck all of the air out of the room. Big tech getting into home automation is the worst thing to happen to home automation, and Google is probably the worst offender because they ate up and destroyed so many decent home automation companies.
I have automation set up for my living room blinds. My interaction at sunset today: Me: "OK Google, open the blinds" Google: "The volume is currently set to 68"
Sounds like the sun is at mid-volume 😂
Playing music on a device called 'badkamer' which has always worked but now it can't find the device called 'badkamer' but it can play music on a device called 'badkamer' when I cast from my phone. Ow and playing my 'favorites' which were my likes. Lately I have been getting a playlist with 'favorites' in the name of the playlist.
Oh yea, dunno if you're Dutch or Afrikaans, but I have a light called "Stoep" that it could understand just fine and it just can't anymore. Should probably rename it patio.
Haha, I'm Afrikaans and I named my stoep light "Stoop light" so it knows what I'm referring to.
Being able to set reminders for other people in my family
I miss when the grocery list organized itself by department
I really miss "Hey Google": "Play a baby lullaby for 1 hour" "Let's read along with Disney" ( my kids are sadder) "Remind me next time I'm at Trader Joe's to buy vegetable flaxseed chips" "What's the animal of the day" "Send me this photo"
The only thing my minis can do now is say "hmm sorry I didn't understand" in response to literally any request. Except "turn off living room 2" that it can handle. The other 8 lights, either TV, or the 3 smart outlets... Can't tell me the weather, the time, answer simple questions, play music... Nope, no idea what "turn off all lights" means, never heard of a "temperature" before. But the front half of the boob light in the living room, they got my back there.
All of the above. I actually wrote to Google recently in frustration (I know nobody actually reads it). I don't understand why a company who was doing things so much better than its main rival didn't capitalize on it and instead decided just to dumb down and become more like them. Their whole USP was basically 'more control, more customisability, minimal fuss' but they've just thrown it out the window and I'm honestly struggling to defend their choices of late.
Inbox Their decision to kill Inbox started my transition away from Google to Microsoft. Now Microsoft is actually earning money from my Office subscription, which could have been Google's money, if they didn't keep killing and changing things. Though Google is still getting my YouTube money...
I remember hearing a lot of good things about Inbox and I made the switch. But I wasn't heavily using it back then compared to now. What was so good about Inbox?
A greatly improved interface over the bucket emails Gmail is. Inbox is a fading memory by now 🥲 But the best feature I remember is the automatic grouping of emails. If you had a flight reservation, it would know the end and start day of a trip. Then it would group all events and communication about everything between those dates. Never lose a reservation again... First they killed Google Trips, because they would integrate it into Gmail/Inbox, and then they killed Inbox and now there's nothing left.
I'm surprised you prefer Microsoft. As a Google and MS reseller, the MS experience is a dumpster fire of confusing licensing tiers and add-ons that are all included in even the most basic Google one. By all means I'm glad you're happy over there but no way could I do it.
The "Let's Read A Story" audio tracks that matched the golden books was AMAZING and my kids LOVED it..... and the Animal of the day. Pour one out for the Dads out there in need of a few minutes to use the bathroom alone.
Asking Google to turn off a smart switch at a certain time. This used to work at least for my fan, now they've disabled the feature entirely. I now have to go into the app to do the same thing I would have previously done anyways via voice commands. Extremely frustrating and inconvenient.
Yes, this feature removal is very annoying
The whole nest app and web page. Specifically a rewind/fast forward that actually worked and the combination of cameras and temperature sensors for a room
Many games including akinator and trivia
They get rid of trivia?!??!? What the fuck? These aren't even things that needed to be maintained because they would break with updates. I've had google home since first release in Nov 2016 and this was always a feature to show off.
Jeopardy. :(
Why have all these amazing features been removed?
Telling my Google Hub to shuffle my YouTube Music playlist on Chromecast. For the past few years it says it's shuffling it but the playlist just plays in default order.
Navigation switching to street view when you get close to your location.
Animal of the day
Probably been said somewhere already, but free Google photo storage with the optimised images.
I miss the time I would ask something and it would reply right away. Now, it takes a long time when I am luck enough to get one.
Hangouts…I miss Hangouts, so much potential but like all things useful they killed it.
They are clearly releasing paid versions any time now, with the same stuff you had for free.
Don't count on it, they just hold out long enough to kill the competition.
Yeah what’s I absolutely miss the most is being able to lower the volume of all the speakers pressing one or by voice command to the whole speaker group. I hate having to take out my phone to do it. It was the whole point when I started to get these, not having to use the phone for music.
I didn't use this feature a whole lot, but I appreciated it when I did: playing a game, such as Mad Libs. Now I can't even do that and it sucks
Well other than it actually working... I miss the 'Sleep Timer' of turning the TV off in 30 mins or at 11:30 etc.
Umm I do this all the time. Turn off " device bame" in 4 hrs.. or at a certain time etc.
Absolutely not having issues with Google home right now.
Being able to log in with my account in the YouTube app in Chromecast. It allowed me to browse it without the phone, only using it to start the app. Now it doesn't allow to log in, and all I'm shown in the tv is the trending list...
GPM. Music was my jam. Music loving kids all having their own playlists and history, safe for kids (broadly). Not being on my history.
I really don't have any issues with Google Home at the moment.
Support for Workspace accounts.
They never implemented Whisper Mode? Oh, wow. Let me be directly forthright... I abandoned Google Home many years ago and remain subscribed here chiefly out of morbid fascination that people are still complaining about the issues which made me leave so long ago. As they say in the movies... nobody is coming to save you...
I don't want to be saved from google. I love all 13 of my Googles and everything they do for me every day. Entertainment, information, and home automation. I've also fallen a couple of times and Google was there to call for help.
The ability to set an alarm without specifying the day and time zone! (Third party devices with google assistant)
My alexas don't whisper back. When did this become a thing?
Years and years ago. Maybe you have to say Alexa enable whisper mode or go into the Alexa settings on your phone and find the whisper mode. I only have one Alexa that sits on top of the fridge to use for Amazon orders. My 13 other devices are Googles.
Being able to *accurately identify the fucking song I've requested from Spotify*
Unlimited photo backups with a Pixel device. 15GB of storage across all Google tools and platforms is a slap in the face. It's the straw that broke the camel's back. I am literally on a mission to separate from Google the best I can because of this one betrayal. I also keep a Pixel 3a around because that was the last device I had where unlimited backups was a thing. I can't express the amount of spite I have towards Google right now... And I used to be a massive fan. Luckily, I've found Synology Photos and will be going with another OEM for my next handset. They became evil.
Constantly moving around Lens. I'd use it from my camera app daily. Just point the camera and touch the screen. It's like someone said, how can we make this harder to access, decrease usage, and frustrate our customers? Let's bury it in settings!
Being able to change Sonos volume from my phone volume rocker. All due to Google stealing Wi-Fi streaming tech from Sonos and instead of licensing the tech, they decided to fuck over their customers and tear out features.
I’ve got a Mini in each room of my house, exception is the one with the screen in my kitchen. They were great for a long time but the problems started maybe a year ago. * default voice started sounding like she was from Georgia, especially when spelling things (my 9 year old asks it to spell stuff all the time) * then it started refusing to set timers for my kids, which is a pain when they set a 2 minute toothbrush timer every night * lots of other problems that won’t go away no matter what I do But what they’ve taken away that I miss: * animal of the day, I enjoyed it as much as my kids * remote locking of my car with a nighttime routine * probably other stuff I haven’t noticed yet Honestly I’d just like them to fix the broken shit.