Just got a Google Home mini - cannot figure out how to connect to Homeseer

[simonmason]

It appears that they have changed the Google Home app and I can't find the menu option to add home control. I am following the instructions at - https://homeseer.com/google-home-integration/ and most of it (so far) doesn't match. Can someone point me in the right direction? Thanks.

[JohnBoy70_99]

If you have a lot of devices it has issues with the sync failing.

I have over 50 devices and up to a month ago I never got it to work. Then I got it to sync ok but others have reported recently that it is broken again.

when the direct link was broken for me I was able to set it up in IFTTT and get it to work. You can either build discrete applets for each device or action, or do a pass through that will send any speech right to homeseer when you say “tell homeseer to xx”. The former gives a better user experience but is a lot of work to set up all the applets. Neither solution works as well as the real homeseer/google home integration but it is at least something.

It is too bad google home can’t get this to work right because I think in general google home is better than amazon echo in many things. But in this case the echo integration worked perfectly on the first try out of the box and has been flawless, while the google home integration has been problematic.

[simonmason]

Thanks for the info. I can't actually get past step 1. I am supposed to click on the hamburger menu in the Home app - there is no hamburger menu and I don't see anything that resembles the option Home Control?

[wgolfguy]

Google Home App, account, settings, home, add, setup device then pick whether its a new device or works with google. If you need to just link your homeseer account select works with google and search for homeseer.

Cheers

[simonmason]

ok, thanks - that was helpful. I get the message Account Now Linked in the top corner of the app then it returns to the devices screen and nothing new shows up. I am assuming that all devices that have voice control checked should show? This is working with Alexa but nothing is showing in the Google Home app. Is there something else I need to do? Thanks.

[wgolfguy]

ok, thanks - that was helpful. I get the message Account Now Linked in the top corner of the app then it returns to the devices screen and nothing new shows up. I am assuming that all devices that have voice control checked should show? This is working with Alexa but nothing is showing in the Google Home app. Is there something else I need to do? Thanks.

sorry i was out of the loop for a while.if you have to many it will crash and not add them. however this was 2 months ago. dont know if this issue got resolved or not. i had 92 voice devices. had to lower it to 42 for it to show up in google.

update: seems fixed tested it by adding more total is now at 62

[mriebese]

ok, thanks - that was helpful. I get the message Account Now Linked in the top corner of the app then it returns to the devices screen and nothing new shows up. I am assuming that all devices that have voice control checked should show? This is working with Alexa but nothing is showing in the Google Home app. Is there something else I need to do? Thanks.

Hi Simonmason did you ever get this to work? I am having the same problem as you. I am able to link the MYHS account but nothing shows up after that in the Google Home app. Turns out if you count all the Statuses and Scenes I have 85 devices

[ksum]

Make sure you have the use voice command check box checked and a voice command entered for the devices and events. For events the check box is under the event's options while the voice command field is under the event name. For a device both items are on the device's general tab. Then sync HomeSeer "okay Google, sync HomeSeer"

[simonmason]

To confirm - does the voice command have to be filled out for it to be recognized? And is this true about Alexa as well? Thanks.

[Rupp]

You should only need to check the Voice Command checkbox and this should work. Google Home has been having issues lately and seems to be hit or miss and more picky on the naming conventions than Alexa is. You should uncheck all of your voice commands and test just one when getting started.

[Meapilot]

The biggest thing I have noticed over time with Google Home is, once you have it set up properly (voice commands set and check boxes marked) have ALOT of patience. Seems all the changes Google is making with other things (nest, etc) the servers seem slow to sync at times. Almost like set it up properly and forget about it for a bit. YMMV

In my experience, I have not had to remove all of the devices from Google Home. I have just verified/changed what needed to be in HS and then re-sync Google. That is where I have noticed that it can vary in time it takes to actually sync.
I do agree Google can be picky with naming/commands. UNIQUE seems to work better.

[tpchristian]

Voice command does need to be check. The Voice Command text box doesn't need to be filled. However, I would suggest that you do this. Otherwise, by default, it will try to add the location names to the device. Google has a Home Graph that stores information about the home and the room. IMO, you should not duplicate the location information in the name. I think that this convention was implemented a very long time ago when GH didn't have a home graph or contextual commands for the room. I think the idea was that you wouldn't have to put devices into a room, then. That is certainly not the case any longer. You should name the device something short, without the room name, and that will make sense for you to say when you want to control it individually.

Beyond the voice command flag, you need to make sure that the device you have this enabled for have the right "control use" options on them. It will need on/off and maybe dim for lights and switches.

Much earlier there used to be a problem if you had too many devices. I couldn't get it working with much more than about 20 devices. That seems have been fixed long ago and I have been running about 50 devices. Sometimes it works and other times it doesn't.

In the last year, I have only had the HomeSeer Google Home interface work well for about two months. All other times, it has been intermittent to constant failures. This certainly could be googles fault, but it makes sense to me that the issue lies on the HomeSeer side. If this was a widespread issue with their API, all vendors would be having issues and that would make the news. Most of my devices go through HS, but I do have some other vendors linked as well. I have not had issues with other vendors. These are the reasons for my statements.

[ksum]

I agree with tpchristian. Fill in the voice command and set the room in the Google Home app. While not necessary, it allows for clean flexibility in the item name and voice command. I have also found that I do not have events in a voice command friendly way but also that for many events I end up creating a custom Routine in the Google Home app.