AliceFollowing on from its announcement in September that it had embraced Amazon Alexa and the power of voice control, as of this Friday, home automation systems from Control4 are to be integrated with Google Home and Pixel products through the IoT engine IFTTT thanks to a driver created by New Zealand developer Chowmain.
It is worth noting that Google’s voice-recognition API won’t be released until December; however integration is already possible with IFTTT, which already has a Google Assistant ‘channel’.
“Our method of integration of Google Home via IFTTT will work in the UK (and Europe) when the product is released in the region,” Alan Chow, Chowmain co-founder told CE Pro Europe. It will also work with the Google Assistant voice recognition straight away on the phone.
“Google Assistant (which powers Google home and Google pixel) will open up its APIs in December to allow third party manufacturers to allow their products to interact with Google Home in three different ways,” he furthers.
These three ways comprise the following:
- Direct Actions: Direct Actions integrates services with Google Assistant for straightforward requests. Direct Actions are suitable for home automation, media and communications use cases.
- Conversation Actions: Conversation Actions connect the user with Google Assistant users for relevant requests that require ‘back and forth’ interaction to fulfil.
- Embedded Google Assistant: This allows manufacturers to build the Google Assistant right into a range of devices, from Raspberry Pi to mass-market consumer products.
Integration is achieved through an update to the Chowmain IFTTT driver for Control4 to allow Google Home and Pixel to pass through commands and variables to the Control4 home automation system. Earlier this year Chowmain introduced IFTTT-based support for Amazon Alexa (Echo).
Using Google Home’s very own Alexa, only named ‘Assistant’ – homeowners will be able to control all of their Control4 favourites such as their thermostats, lighting, TVs – even broadcast text-to-speech announcements through the home – all via voice command.
“The great thing about the integration is that it works on both Google Home and Google Pixel products,” says Alan. “Even if you are not within range of your Home device you can use your Pixel phone to control your home upon verbal commands.”
Chowmain’s IFTTT driver for Control4 offers more than just Google Home integration, however. The integration allows Control4 to control any of the products or services integrated into IFTTT, whilst also allowing those products to control Control4. This includes Tesla and BMW connected car notifications, homeowner geofencing, GE, LG and Samsung smart appliance integration.
Google Assistant will only support a handful of products at launch on Friday: Nest, SmartThings, Philips Hue and IFTTT.
“Their IFTTT integration is what makes their product spectacular and is how we have integrated Google Home into Control4 before the product has even launched,” says Alan.”
Google has pretty much implemented its Direct Actions into IFTTT to allow users to build trigger phrases that react on almost any phrase, including phrases with number or text variables in them.
“For example we can say: ‘Ok Google. Turn the house off,’ which is a static phrase that can fire an event in Control4 which is programmed to perform an ‘all off’ scene, or we can do more advanced stuff like: ‘Ok Google, set the living room thermostat to 70 degrees,’ which will fire an event in Control4 which will pass through ‘Living Room Thermostat’ and 70 as the variables.
Alexa Vs. Assistant
Alexa currently requires a manufacturer to create a cloud-based service. “They then need to go through a certification process with Amazon to get the skill passed,” Alan advises. “It takes a massive amount of effort from the manufacturer to get it to work.
“Going down the IFTTT route through Alexa does not have the power that Google does,” he admits. “It allows you to say a specific phrase, but only a static phrase, so you will only be able to say: ‘Alexa, trigger house off’ for it to fire an event in Control4 if the integration is done via IFTTT.
“Both platforms offer similar functionality,” he reasons. “Amazon does have a head start though as they released back in 2014 and have captured a significant amount of attention from the market. If we concentrate on the smart home then currently Amazon is winning the race, as out of box it will work with IoT devices like the Nest, Ecobee, SmartThings, Wink, Insteon, Belkin Wemo, Philips Hue, Lifx, Big Ass Fans and the major automation systems like Control4 and ELAN, although I do think that over the coming months Google will catch up extremely quickly.
“Google will be launching with a few IoT devices (Nest, SmartThings and Philips Hue) and they seem to be really opening up their platform for anyone to use,” he furthers. “They were smart enough to make their IFTTT channel extremely flexible, thus making it easy for anyone to create interesting combinations of phrases for control. By giving you the ability to enter in alternative ways of saying the same phrase, it minimises programming time.”
Alan states that not only is Google Assistant’s IFTTT channel good for home automation, but people can use it to link in other items in their lifestyle. For example, they can link their mobile phone and tell Home to send an SMS, send an email or even send text to speech via a phone call.
“Overall I think that having competition in this space is good and it will really drive innovation from both Amazon and Google, which in the end will benefit the home automation market.”
Alan is of the opinion that home automation manufacturers “would be silly not to” integrate with Google Home and its voice assistant. “Integration to Google Assistant not only offers you a Wi-Fi speaker in the home, but offers you control via all the Google Pixel phones that have come out in the market. Even if you are not near your Google Home device you can use your Google Pixel device to control your home.”
While Amazon Echo is now available in the UK and Germany, Google Home is not expected to arrive in the UK until sometime in 2017 for approximately £106.