Make your own Google Home commands with new shortcuts setting

Google Home is a great tool for pulling information, consuming media and controlling your smart products, but it can feel almost robotic. You have to be pretty straight forward with your commands. This is all changing with the introduction of Google Assistant Shortcuts, though.

Don’t want to tell Google Home to “turn off all the lights”? Maybe saying something like “time to sleep” feels more suitable, and this is what this new feature allows you to do.

It is possible thanks to the implementation of IFTTT support, which was discovered by the Android Police team a few weeks ago, during an app teardown. These lines of code meant nothing until today, when the capability was finally switched on.

While the full IFTTT app allows for an endless amount of customization, Google Home’s version of the service is much simpler. It almost feels like the only improvement is that you can set your own name to certain actions. For example, you could have Google home display old photos when you are “feeling melancholic”, or play dancing music when it’s “time to party”.

The truth is we would expect more from a feature like this. Ideally, one would be able to perform multiple actions at once. For example “Get romantic” could dim the lights, turn them to a specific color, play some lovely music and set the thermostat to a comfortable setting. One can only dream, but hopefully this feature will eventually evolve into something like this.

Regardless, it’s a cool little treat. Simply go to the Google Home app and access Google Assistant > More settings > Shortcuts. From here you can select popular shortcuts or create your very own. What do you guys think of these Google Assistant Shortcuts? Do you also wish they could be more elaborated? Hit the comments to share your 2 cents!