Google Assistant Naming

Configuration
1

I’ve had google assistant configured for some time now and its working very well except some of the naming.

Most the time we turn on/off the living room light by “Hey Google turn on the big light” this works as expected

  switch.wall_switch_left_158d00024599c4:
    name: 'Living Room Light'
    expose: true
    room: 'Living Room'
    aliases:
      - Living Room Light
      - Big Light
      
  light.living_room_lamp:
    name: 'Desk Lamp'
    expose: true
    room: 'Living Room'
    aliases:
      - Desk Lamp
      
  light.living_room_floor_lights:
    name: 'Floor Lights'
    expose: true
    room: 'Living Room'
    aliases:
      - Floor Lights

However…
If i say “Hey Google turn on the living room light” it turns on all 3 lights.

Its not to bad for the living room but I have the same problem with the kitchen and this is just the kitchen light no nicknames like big light
The two workarounds I can think of are…

  1. Giving unique names to all lights - I’ll never remember all the names
  2. Setting up every light in a different room for google - Ill loose turn off [room name] from google assistant (could be fixed with scenes)

Just wondered if anyone else had come up with a better way to work this sort of thing?

2

This is how google treats device names. As long as the other devices have that name in them it will turn it on. This is not something home assistant can control. Your best bet is to rename lights so they don’t keep the same names.

1 Like
3

I personally created groups to help and exposed these groups instead of every single light

4

@dshokouhi I get how google treats device names, referencing my code If I tell google to turn on the floor lights or desk lamp I only get that one light and they all have the word light in them. What I believe you are referring to is if i had a light called “desk light” and another called “desk” google will turn them both on, which is not the issue i have :frowning:

@lolouk44 not exposing all lights could help, however lets say I grouped my floor lights and desk lamp and exposed the group. I will still have the same problem with command turn on the ‘living room light’, which I think just comes back to my second solution unless i’ve completely missed your point?

5

@PeteCondliffe oh you are right your issue is that you have the lights in the same room and by calling out the room name it is turning them all on and off.

6

Yep I get why google have done it but it’s a damn pain at times.
What google need to do is look at which google home im talking to that way I could just name all my lights “big light” and google home would know which big light because it’s in the same room.

7

haha yea I know what you mean by that, it is getting smarter so that may be doable soon. I have “main lights” in each room as well and sometimes I only want those on and not those with my lamp and counter lights etc… I kinda had to change the way I use google home until it is ready for that.

8

how have you managed that?

9

I renamed everything to have a unique name that does not have any word from any other light (i.e. den lights and den lamp are now den lights and corner lamp), not using rooms in google home either.

10

I think you have just got the option I had missed, which is exactly why i posted on here. I said assign everything to different rooms but the answer is to leave everything unassigned.

Thanks

11

Just an update on this incase anyone else trips over the post. Google now understanding rooms and im finding putting the devices in their relevant rooms now makes more sense. This is because you can now say turn on the light and it will only do it for the lights in the same room as the google home.

1 Like