Controlling Google Lights and Switches With Siri on Your iPhone

So many lights and switches won't work with Siri, but will work with Google. However, you can still use Siri to control there by setting up a Shortcut to get Siri talking to the Google Assistant app.

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how you can use Siri on your iPhone to control your Goggle assisted smart bulbs and switches.
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 So as we gather more and more smart home items like smart bulbs and switches and fans and all sorts of different things you'll notice that there are a ton of them that work with Goggle Assistant but don't necessarily work with Apple's Home Kit. I think that's going to change in the near future and we'll see more devices work across all of them. But for now you could pick up some really cheap things like Smart Bulbs that just work with Goggle Assistant and you can set them up to control on your iPhones or the Goggle Home App or to use with Goggle Assistant's speakers and such. But what if you wanted to control those using Siri? Well since they don't work with Home Kit there's no way to do that directly but it is actually pretty easy to use the Shortcuts App to set things up so you can issue a Siri command and that will actually control the device. 
The key here is to have the Goggle Assistant App. So you can see I've got it right here in The App Store. This is what it looks like. You get it and you can control all your Goggle Home devices. So let's assume you have bought a smart bulb or whatever. You've used the app from the manufacturer to set it up and now you have to link that to Goggle Assistant. Maybe you used your Home App to control it or maybe you've got a Goggle Nest or a Goggle speaker or clock or something and you're speaking to that and controlling it. But it would be nice to actually use Siri to do that instead. 
So the idea here is that we're going to create a shortcut in the Shortcut's App. That shortcut will control the device. Any shortcut can be called on by Siri. So let's first start off with a new shortcut here. I'm going to add an action. Then I'm going to search for Assistant. So this is why you need the Goggle Assistant App. Shortcuts by itself doesn't have anyway to control these devices. The Assistant App does. The Assistant App also has built into it a hook into Shortcuts. Goggle has added that functionality. If I look under Assistant you'll see at least one item Ask Goggle. If you look at this you'll see it just asks Goggle a question. So the idea here is this simple little Shortcut action added by the Assistant app will allow you to ask the Assistant something. 
Now you may think, oh well this is for asking for, say, weather information or setting a reminder using Goggle's apps, or using it to convert currency or something like that. A typical thing you would ask an assistant. But, you're actually just issuing any command you want to the Goggle Assistant. So let's go and add this. Now you can see here that it is setup Ask Goggle and there's a question and you can set that question to whatever you want. So instead of a question I'm going to just issue a command. Just like I would speak to Goggle Assistant. So I'm going to say, toggle office light. I've got a light that's hooked up through Goggle Assistant, it's called Office Light. I could ask Goggle Assistant to turn it On. I can ask Goggle Assistant to turn it Off. But if I use the word toggle then it will switch it On when it is off and Off when it is On. So it is a nice single command that will just change its state. I don't need it to be shown when it is On so I'll turn that Off. I'm going to go and name this Toggle Office Light. The same thing. 
Now naming here is actually very important because you can call a shortcut using Siri with the name you've assigned it. So if you called it Goggle command #1 or something like that, that's what you would actually have to say. So it makes more sense to actually use the same text here in the name of the shortcut as you're using here when you give it a question. Then I'm going to click Done. Then I've got Toggle Office Light.
Now I can use it right here in the Shortcuts App and it will actually work. You can see it goes to the Goggle Assistant App and it issues that command. So I can use this from the Shortcuts App. I can tap here and then get Info here and then set this up to Add to Home Screen. It could  be a Home Screen Button I can easily press. 
But I don't actually have to do anything to have this work with Siri. So I'm going to activate Siri here on my phone. (Speaking to Siri, Toggle Office Light). It will actually run that. I don't need to have the Shortcuts App open or anything. I could just use it anytime on my phone as a Siri command. 
So now you can setup all sorts of different shortcuts to do all sorts of different things. You just need to go and use the Ask Goggle Action. Then set the question to whatever it is you want Goggle Assistant to hear. Then set the name to whatever you want Siri to be able to react to. You can make a general purpose one as well. So I'm going to start a new shortcut here. I'm actually going to Add an Action using Ask For Input. It is going to ask for text with a prompt. So I'm going to do a prompt like this. I'll go and turn off multiple lines here. Then I'm going to add the Goggle Assistant action, Ask Goggle, and what I'm going to do for the question is I'm going to set that to be the provided input. So it is going to take the output from the Asking for Text and send that in as the question for Goggle. I'll turn Off Show When Run and I'm going to set the name of this to Ask Goggle. So now I've got Ask Goggle here. 
Now if I were to run this from the Shortcuts App or from a button on the Home Screen, it's actually going to prompt me for some text. However if I use Siri to do it the prompt for text will actually be through Siri. So let's give it a try.( Gary says, Ask Goggle. What do you want to ask goggle. Toggle Office Light.) So now you can issue any command to Goggle. So you can have it turn On and Off lights. You can have it do more complex things like I like to have it turn Off a light in five minutes, say. You can have it control fans, switches, whatever you've got setup in your home.
Now I have the ability to activate Siri with my voice turned off on my iPhone because in my office I've got a Home Pod. Watch what happens when I use my Home Pod and see how it uses my phone to then run that Siri command, send it to Goggle Assistant. 
(Hey Siri Ask Goggle. What do you want to ask goggle. Turn On office light. You need to continue on a companion device.) So you can see how it worked there even though it kind of did that weird thing where it says you need to continue on a companion device. It actually did it for me. Of course this assumes your iPhone is unlocked. So it is not ideal. But at least it is one way to get a command from your Home Pod to actually control something that isn't connected to Home Kit or your Apple Ecosystem in anyway. 
Hope you found this useful and it gives you something to build on. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 2 Responses to “Controlling Google Lights and Switches With Siri on Your iPhone”

Jak G

4 months ago

Thanks for putting this together for the iPhone. Can it also be done on a MacBook Air ? Is there a Google Assistant app in the Appstore for Mac ? Could an iPhone Google Assistant app be loaded on a Mac ? Thanks.

Gary Rosenzweig

Jak: No, because there is no Mac version of the Google Assistant app.

Controlling Google Lights and Switches With Siri on Your iPhone

Comments: 2 Responses to “Controlling Google Lights and Switches With Siri on Your iPhone”

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