Google Home discussion topic (Archived 1)

at this time, you talk to google home, and let google execute a task like turning some light on, google know at what time you say that task.

if you do not want google to know, that you must use homey without integration with google.
even now we still have to say, **ask homey**it still is documented by google.

Sure, that’s commendable, but I would prefer to have that choice myself.
Because honestly, I don’t care that they know when I’m on the crapper. :smirk:

The ‘ask Homey’-part is annoying but not the only problem, it limits the way you can use a Google Home a lot. Commands you can give, the feedback you get, …

Sorry I think perhaps I wasn’t clear.

The point being, you shouldn’t get to make the choice for other people / everyone, even people (like me) who don’t have a google home.

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thats correct. but now these days… nothing is private (unless we do not use any device connected to the net)

I think this is a damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenario. If Athom would have said “yeah sure you’re google take my user’s data” they would break their own privacy promise. On the other side indeed we can decide for ourselves if we want our privacy breached or not.

Don’t rule out the possibility that Athom is first trying to get the integration without any data sharing but if they won’t succeed in that approach say “ok lets be very transparent in this and tell users data is being shared while using this integration”.

Or Athom is atm searching for a way people can choose themselves :wink: Maybe that’s why they’re so quiet :slight_smile:

But I suppose your data would only be shared with Google the moment you decide to enable the option and link your Athom-account? Just like you have to do right now already. :thinking:

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So to elaborate any further:
Is it:
Google will give approval of a tight integration of Google Assistent (or google home / mini or what name Google uses) ONLY IF Athom agrees to hand over all data collected by Athom of all users of Homey?
Including the data of users/homeys that do not use Google Assistant?

Or is it even worse than that? Google wants to collect data, even data that Athom isn’t collecting? Of all users, including who opt out on using Google Assistant?

Emile said something about this, but wasn’t very clear about it.

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Who knows, all I know is Athom would be required to ‘Meet certain requirements which invade our user’s privacy’.

I also know that if there was a simple solution … you would already have it. Anything else is just an uninformed assumption.

@Blarp - please read above, I was simply pointing out that we don’t have all the facts, and we could sit here guessing all day long and there are lots of valid reasons.

One last piece of wisdom ill share, one of the most factually incorrect / frustrating / board over simplifications / rage inciting thing you can say to a developer starts with "Isn’t it just … "

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im going to guess you dont use Google home but use Alexa right?

All I meant was that if Google requires data to be shared to approve the integration, then Google Home integration should be optional in Homey and by activating it Athom should clearly state what data is shared so the user can decide whether to use it or not.

Edit: after rereading some comments I now understand people like @Jamie fear that all user data would need to be shared. I can’t imagine that would be the case. If so it would be obvious Athom would protest. Data sharing should only happen for the actual users of the integration and should be pre-approved by the user upon enabling it.

I don’t know if that is the case, no inside information or anything. Like Jamie said, we can keep guessing all day long. Witch is a pleasant pastime I must admit. :wink:
I do know of some bigger software companies (not google) that require you to hand over data of your customers if you want to make a plugin our something to their software. They use that data then for marketing purposes. And sometimes different purposes.

But maybe it is not the case here and is it something else.

Let’s see how this all plays out.

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I just hope they do whatever to make It work soon. Got serveral GH mini’s scatterd through the house linked with homey and a hue bridge. The homey integration is barely used since it’s to cumbersome as is. Instead I use the hue direct integration to switch on lights and stuff. This also means Google already knows that I switch my lights to bleu. So what. Ever looked at the Google location time-line of your phone? There you can see every place, traffic jam, hotel you ever visited and the durations. Think most of us already have Gmail so that’s also going through their servers. Lot of people using Android so that’s also going on. I can’t really think of any useful data they can get wich they can’t get at the moment. Mayby power consumption.

To me it feels like their isn’t a lot extra data that they can’t get to now. On the other hand there is a nice benefit for me, not having to do the ask, let or beg homey to xyz. After that I only hope we can get custom hotwords so we can also skip the “hey Google”. And make it something like HARRY TURN ON THE LIGHT. I like the concept of voice and I’m prepared for it but at this moment its just to cumbersome and unnatural.

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If someone buys a google Home and puts it in their living room then it would seem pretty naive to think you are not sharing data with Google…If you have a Google account on a phone then it’s even less “integrity” so, Homey trying to protect you seems a bit farfetched…

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Ok, time to get back on topic, (me included)

  • This is not a thread for unsubstantiated claims.
  • This is not a thread for hypothetical musing as to why things are the way they are.
  • This is not a thread for suggestions as to what you think should be done.
  • This is not a thread for how much privacy you are willing to sacrifice for convenience
  • This is not a thread about how much data google already has upon us.

This is a thread for asking questions concerning Google Home.

To answer the question once and for all officially

In the previous Behind the Magic I also promised that the Smart Home integration would be available shortly. However thus far it has been a very frustrating experience with Google to get it live. We’ve done all the work required, but suddenly they required that we send many devices to the US for certification, and meet certain requirements that in our opinion invade our users’ privacy way too much.

Currently we’re negotiating with Google to get this resolved as soon as possible but they’re very hesitant so far. When we have news, we’ll share

Emile - November 2018

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Any news regading the integration?

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It is now possible to get native Google home support without additional hardware.
It works by connecting homey to gBridge where you can make a free account for up to four devices or pay “what you want” for unlimited devices.

There’s a thread in the apps section which handles this. Just today it started to work without using a raspberry pi. I will probably write a guide on how to do this in the coming days. But all info already exists if you look through the gBridge topic and maybe the MQTT Hub topic.

Of course I hope that there will come official support but this is a pretty good workaround meanwhile.

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Or you create a number of “shortcuts” in your Google Assistant". That’s totally free…

Here’s a guide

https://community.homey.app/t/guide-to-connecting-gbridge-to-homey-for-google-assistant

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