A smart speaker can sometimes be a lot of fun. More often than not, you’ll be using one to listen to music; however, here are ten things you can do with your Google Home to make the most out of it.
Play music from YouTube
The Google Home (or Home mini) plays music from pretty much every streaming platform, but did you know it can play music straight from YouTube too?
All you need is a YouTube Premium subscription, though. In case you don’t, you can still use this feature; however, you’ll be needing a Chromecast attached to a TV.
Voice-based recognition
Your Google Home can learn to recognise different people in your house and respond differently to them. All you’ve got to do is send them an invitation to join your home, and they can train the speaker to identify them.
Based on your voice, you’ll receive customised responses, music types, reminders in your individual Google accounts, and so on.
Set-up routines
Routines are a set of tasks that your smart assistant will perform upon hearing a specific phrase.
For example, you can say “Hey Google, Good Night” and the speaker will automatically turn off the lights, and do anything else that you’ve mentioned in the routine. It’ll even read out the news and the weather to you if you want.
Also read: 10 coolest Bluetooth speakers under INR 10,000 for audiophiles on a budget
Wake up to your favourite music
We all know that Google Home can set alarms. Did you know it can use your favourite song as the alarm tune?
Just say “Hey Google, set an alarm for [time] that plays [song]” and wake up to your favourite tracks.
Talk to it in different languages
Your smart speaker can talk in more than one language. It can speak to you in several other languages. Simply head on to the language setting in the Google Home app, and you can see a list of languages you can interact in with the speaker.
Mine is set to English and Hindi, and it’s quite fun to talk to it in Hindi sometimes and have it reply and repeat.
Turn your TV on/off
We all know that Google Home can control a bunch of smart devices. However, if you’ve got a Chromecast and a compatible TV, you can ask it to turn off/on your TV as well.
Now that’s convenient — no more searching for the remote.
Broadcast something to every Google device in your house
Yes, you read that right. You can ask Google Home to broadcast whatever you speak to every other Google Home in your house. All you need to do is ask.
You can also do this from the Google Assistant on your phone in case you’re out and want a message broadcasted back home.
Play white noise
Play music, yes, play white noise? Why not? You can ask Google to play whatever ambient sounds or white noises you prefer to hear when you like to fall asleep. You can also set sleep timers to play/pause these sounds automatically.
Ask it to tell you stories/jokes
As simple as it sounds, you can ask your speaker to tell you bedtime stories, anecdotes and jokes as and when you like. These stories or jokes can even go on to be fully fledged conversations.
Ask it to remember things for you
Google Home can remember things like birthdays, lock combinations and what not.
Simply ask it “Hey Google, remember [whatever you want]”, and your assistant will keep the information handy whenever you need it.
Also read: Alexa! How safe am I? A look at the dark side of smart tech
