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    Insteon Google Home vs. Alexa

    Quick question for the group. My house currently has 7 Echo dots throughout the house to control Insteon along with other smart devices. I recently got a free Google Home Mini and have been experimenting with that as a replacement for the Echo dots. I find that it excels in a lot of ways over the Echo dot, except Insteon, where I'm having a bit of trouble. Both scenes and devices are causing me trouble. For example. I have a scene called Puppy Away and then another Puppy Night Away. The Echo controls both perfectly; when I ask Google to turn on Puppy Away, it responds by turning both scenes on. Similar in my family room, I have "Family Room Ceiling", "Family Room TV" and "Family Room" lamp. I can ask Echo to control all three together via a scene or individually, say for example dim Family Room ceiling to 50%. When asking Google to control an individual one, she responds with turning all three lights off/on or dimming to the one I wanted to control individually.

    Any suggestions on what I should be doing differently when configuring Insteon on Google Assistant. Like Echo, I ran the typical setup of adding the Insteon skill/app and let everything import.

    #2
    Unfortunately they're is no easy way of fixing your issue. A phrase that works with 1 may not work with another.

    What I suspect is Google hears "family room" and controls devices based on that particular phrase.

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      #3
      I've had similar problems. I had a scene I called Living Room. Google Home always took that term to refer to the room itself, not the scene. I had a similar issue with a Chromecast device I had named simply "TV". Once I renamed both to more unique names, all worked fine.

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        #4
        Hopefully a bug that is fixed in later releases of the software.

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          #5
          The only reliable thing is to give completely unique simple one-word names to devices, scenes and rooms. Alexa, Google, and Apple HomeKit all have problems otherwise. it partially works, but then doesn't. None of them completely avoid problems with overlapped names and it is just an exercise in frustration unless you carefully craft all your names to be different.

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            #6
            Scenes can easily be re-named. However, with 80+ devices, giving them unique names and remembering them isn't practical. Echo does just fine with non unique names. Seems like Google and Insteon need to work closer on their integration.

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              #7
              Originally posted by mlx52 View Post
              Echo does just fine with non unique names.
              How does the Echo know which device to control if the name is not unique?
              Message from Forum Admin: stusviews passed away in April 2018. Stu was a huge fan of Insteon and a huge presence on both the Smarthome and Insteon forums, helping thousands of us along the way (he had nearly 20,000 posts to his name). We thank him for his contributions, dedication, and passion for making the Smart Home a reality. He will truly be missed.
              Saving energy is not always free. Be a world saver.

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                #8
                Originally posted by mlx52 View Post
                Scenes can easily be re-named. However, with 80+ devices, giving them unique names and remembering them isn't practical. Echo does just fine with non unique names. Seems like Google and Insteon need to work closer on their integration.
                Hey mlx52 ,
                On the Google Assistant side, Google handles receiving your voice command and trying to understand your intent. Then, Google determines which devices to turn on/off, and sends those commands our way. Given that, we don't have any opportunity to change how Google interprets your command.

                I have noticed that each voice assistant interprets your commands a bit differently. Google Assistant does allow for assigning nicknames to your discovered devices, which may be able to help you.

                Thanks for the feedback!

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                  #9
                  Sean, thanks for the response. Sounds like I need to reach out to Google for support on their end.

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