I already have a very Google-centric smarthome (several Chromecasts - both audio and video, and several Google Home devices), so I’m wondering what, if anything, one of these Smart Displays might add to the experience.
Any thoughts (or even guesses) on how this might integrate with Home Assistant?
I imagine it would have at least the ability to do TTS like my Google Home devices.
But would the built-in screen somehow be accessible for notifications perhaps?
My birthday’s just a month away and I’m sure my very tech-savvy girlfriend will be wondering if I’m interested in one!
I also have a google centric house and am keenly awaiting a smart display to get to my doorstep in Australia.
I went to the May Google developers conference where there was lots to learn about building apps on smart displays. Depending on how difficult this is (I’m not a developer Btw) , ill take a stab at it myself.
Hopefully they’ll enable for us an ability to open the home assistant UI webpage which will be a good start. You could use the same to open up any custom webpage once it’s enabled.
I’m still trying to figure out how I can expose the Home Assistant UI on the smart display. Can’t yet figure it out but it looks as though it is possible because many food recipes on the smart display simply takes you to a browser. Though you can navigate the browsers website you can’t direct what url to point to.
Ok, I’m still trying to figure out how I can access Home Assistant using the Smart Display…
But for now here are some of the cool things that the display can do with your devices can do when they’re integrated with Home Assistant and exposed to the Google Assistant.
When you issue the command “ok google, set the temperature to 21 degrees” it’ll show you what it’s done plus give you a UI for you to manually make changes to your thermostat like below. I’m doing this with an ecobee thermostat directly integrated to the google assistant.
When you tell your lights to turn on or off with “ok google, turn on X light” it’ll show you a UI to make changes. The photo provided is using a Xiaomi Smarthome Gateway which has no direct integration to Google Assistant so this is done via Home Assistant. As you can see it works very well, you can control ON/OFF, brightness and even the colours!!!
Can I ask for everyone who reads this thread to help me get a response from the Google team?
If you also want to open Home Assistant on a Google Home Smart display can you also add a comment to this thread saying you want custom URLs such as home assistant to work on the smart display.
Googlers tell me they will respond to people power, but atm I’m the only one asking!
Looks like I’m the only one trying to get Home Assistant to work on the Google Smart Display. Hopefully persistence pays off.
Google isn’t responding and Dialogflow isn’t possible either. The only path seems to Spoof a food recipe so that home assistant will show up on the smart display (pretending to be a food recipe). According to this reviewer the browser seems only to work for food recipes https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/lenovo-smart-display-1202886406/
So my plan is as below. Let me know if you’re interested and I’ll write up the detailed steps on what I do to get this working.
Identify a food recipe on the smart display to Spoof and get its full Web address.
I’ve just setup my webserver, however I now see an issue with my approach.
All the recipe pages that the Smart Display links to are signed HTTPS locations. So spoofing the URL will work but i can’t spoof the certificate… I think this may not work, but I’ll keep trying.
As for the Smart Display, there’s no onscreen keyboard for input. So when navigating a recipe you can click through links etc… but if you click on a search dialog box there’s no ability to enter any values.
Google are very much wanting the smart display to be a “voice forward” device (i.e. you use your voice as the primary input, as compared to a tablet where it’s a “touch forward” device). Google Smart Displays do not currently have an onscreen keyboard, so it begins to make sense why they don’t allow you to open URLs.
But still… I just want to use my Google Smart Display to access Home Assistant! Must this be so hard!!!
Conclusion as at 9th Sept 2018:
You can’t open a URL on the Google Smart Display (only food recipes are allowed). This could be by design as the Google Smart Display is a “voice forward” device and does not have an onscreen keyboard
Trying to expose a URL on the Smart Display with dialog-flow does not work (URL suggestion chips do not appear)
Trying to spoof a recipe page with DNS will not work. All the recipes accessed on the Google Smart Display are HTTPS with signed certificates.
The only way to open a custom URL is to be the owner of one of the signed recipe pages and put a hyperlink on that page which will have embedded details of your HASS login and password (as there is no keyboard input… seems like we have to pester Google to make this capability available.
Just bought one of these bad boys, excited to integrate it with Home Assistant. I know it will take an ungodly amount of time to get the home assistant UI on here but I’m sure it will be worth it. Three initial questions
You can cast to this thing, right? What happens if you cast a browser tab with your home assistant UI pulled up? Can you interact with it or is it view only?
I know you don’t have routines in Australia, but if you did-- do you think this would solve the problem? Can you interact with other websites that are launched on the screen?
If both of these approaches fail, would creating an “Android Things” app (just a webview) potentially work?
I guess I’m trying to suss out why Google is trying so hard to disallow website interactions on this device.
All 3 of the options you’ve listed I’ve tried and failed. The last one, even though it’s an android things device you can install any custom software to it. You can however build a “google actions” app but the tool set provided for Google Actions will neither let you build your own browser or use the inbuilt one.
My guess is that Google wants the UI to be a Voice Forward device rather than a tablet which is a Touch forward device.
Hopefully Google adds this capability in the future. Recent leaks point to a new HOME HUB tablet attached to a google home speaker dock. This suggests to me touch controls and even an IoT touch based UI with widgets for home control is in the horizon.
Would any of you be able to do a system dump, or is that possible with these devices. I’m trying to build a raspberry pi driven Android Things smart display. Any thoughts or suggestions welcome.
I’ve been watching Google’s smart display, and it seems they didn’t use Android Things on their own display.
I know this is not a solution for Google users but the new Amazon Echo Show Gen 2 (or an upgraded G1) can be used with HA as it now includes both a FireFox and Silk Browser. It appears to work well although the browser does time out after 10 mins and revert to the home screen. Haven’t found a workaround for that.
What I don’t understand about these new smart displays is how they can compete with a simple android tablet? These smart displays need a power supply vs. tablet has battery, they are fairly UI locked vs. tablet can do most anything, and they both support Google Assistant… Id rather a cheap tablet and have the flexibility and portability…
The Google Assistant is aiming to be an omnipresent computer interface much like what we see in science fiction space ships. With plugged in device you can be confident that when you’re in the same room it’ll work the same way every time. With a tablet, it being mobile breaks that experience slightly. Google wants you to be confident that everytime you’re in that room the Google Assistant will be ready to respond consistently each time.
It’s not trying to compete with tablets, and it’s deliberate that google doesn’t put the play store on these devices.
yes you can - a little convoluted as cast uses an m3u stream.
Here is a thread:
and here it the git:
i ran all my cameras through the docker (which consumed almost no compute, surprisingly, on my NAS) - then could create automations (well you get it)… it did take a few seconds to come up though.
