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Custom Routines and Presence Triggers

mg1234
Community Member

Hi  - is there a way to have the trigger for custom routines be your presence in the home (i.e. phone location or nest thermostat)? Since the Google Home app does not allow for the randomization of lights to turn on when I'm away from home (it only allows you to choose the SAME lights, without a time delay or varied duration, in the preset Away mode), I'm trying to recreate the Lutron SmartAway function that is now disabled since I migrated from Nest to Google.

 

 

21 REPLIES 21

sporfrog
Bronze
Bronze

You should be able to use Google Home Presence Sensing...I think. For example when you are away, turn off the lights, turn down the heat. When you are home, turn up the heat and turn on the lights.

Probably the most straight forward approach would be to only use Presence Sensing on the phone for each household member. If all participating phones (you, spouse, roommates, kids, etc) are detected away, then run the Away routine. Once the first phone returns, run the home routine. It uses the phone's location services and "geofencing" to determine each individual/phone status.

Google Home App -> Settings -> Presence sensing (under Features)

Then you configure the Home and Away routines to do whatever you want them to do. Turn on or off lights, enable/disable cameras, adjust thermostat temperature, etc.

Google Home app -> Routines -> (select home or away)

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/10000312?hl=en

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9251759?hl=en

 

mg1234
Community Member

Thanks sporfrog - unfortunately this does not help address the issue. 

GarrettDS
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey there, 
Sorry for the late response here. 
Would you mind reviewing this article and letting me know if that is what you are looking for? I believe it should resolve the problem so that you can use routines along with Presence Sensing. 

Please let me know if that does not help and we can look a little further. 

I look forward to hearing from you. 

Best regards, 

Garrett DS

GarrettDS
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey there,
Just wanted to see if you still needed help. Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns.

Best regards,
Garrett DS

JeralW
Community Member

The article shared doesn't address running SCENES using Home/Away or creating CUSTOM ROUTINES with the presence sensing starter.

 

So I take it there isn't any workaround for this?

GarrettDS
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey there, 

Sorry for the late response. I've been trying to do some more research for you on this, and perhaps this article will give you some more information on how to do what you're wanting. 

Please let me know if you have any other questions. 

Best regards, 

Garrett DS

JeralW
Community Member

Isn't that the same article you had shared 2 weeks ago?

Have mentioned that this issue is not covered there.

GarrettDS
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hi there, 

Nope it's definitely not the same article that I shared with you before. Please review the new article and let me know if that helps you with your issue. 

Best regards, 

Garrett DS

mg1234
Community Member

Hey Garrett - thanks but this article still does not address the issue. 

 

I'm looking for a way to have the trigger for custom routines be your presence in the home (i.e. phone location or nest thermostat)? As of now, it can only be a voice command or some preset options like canceling an alarm, which don't really work. Ideally it should be something passive, like presence sensing, so it can activate certain routines. The AWAY routine does not help here, as it only allows you to turn on/off things once and at the specific point when the routine is triggered. What I'm trying to do, as per my original post (pasted below in italics), is randomize the on/off function of lights in my house when no one is home. This would mean that they turn on and off at different times. This is a pretty common feature for Smart Home systems, such as Lutron (I would've used Lutron's app but Google has removed Nest integration from them so it cannot use the presence sensing from Nest related devices).

 

Since the Google Home app does not allow for the randomization of lights to turn on when I'm away from home (it only allows you to choose the SAME lights, without a time delay or varied duration, in the preset Away mode), I'm trying to recreate the Lutron SmartAway function that is now disabled since I migrated from Nest to Google.

GarrettDS
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey ya'll, 
Upon doing some further research it sounds like this is not a current feature that is available. Feedback like this helps us constantly improve our products and services by knowing what we are doing right and what we can work on. 

Please let us know if you have any other questions. 

Best regards, 
Garrett DS

GarrettDS
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey there, 
Just wanted to see if you saw our response. Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns.

Best regards, 
Garrett DS

GarrettDS
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey there, 
Just checking in to make sure that you saw our response. Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns as I will be locking this in 24 hours. 

Have a great day. 
Garrett DS
 

mg1234
Community Member

Hi there - given there are no solutions to what we have asked for, will you update us once things have been addressed?

 

Thanks.

JeralW
Community Member

This is a community support page meaning they don't work for Google and there's no update to be given. They won't be able to speak for Google whether this is something in the pipeline either.

 

If the solution doesn't exist now, which we have determined is the case now, all we can do is provide feedback and hope this is implemented in future releases.

GarrettDS
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey there, 

JeralW is correct, thank you for the clarification here. If the features get implemented or any changes are made, you will hear announcements about them. 
I'm going to go ahead and lock this thread since there is nothing more to go over. 
 

If you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to create a new thread. 


Best regards, 

Garrett DS

GarrettDS
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey there,
Sorry for the late response, but I wanted to drop in here to help.

I understand that this can be confusing but I definitely wanted to stop by and see how I could help.

Just wanted to double check to see if you were still needing help on this? If so, what troubleshooting steps have you tried?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,
Garrett DS
 

mg1234
Community Member

Hi Garrett - thanks for checking in. No, still no solution on this problem. I've submitted feedback/feature requests into the App as well. 

 

 

 

GarrettDS
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey there, 

Thanks for the information and the troubleshooting steps that you've taken. 
Were you able to read the response from sporfrog, and did it help? Thanks to sporfrog for the assistance. 

Please let me know if you have any other questions. 

Best regards, 

Garrett DS

mg1234
Community Member

Hi - the suggested solution from Sportfrog doesn't work (i've tried it before) for the reasons stated previously: AWAY routines do not allow for randomization of lights on and off to simulate a Smart Away scenario (see Lutron's smart away system). 

 

What would be more helpful is to have the ability to create custom routines in lieu of this that can be triggered by Presence Sensing. That way we can add random lights to turn on and off all during the SAME Away scenario.

JeralW
Community Member

Having the same question. Essentially, how can we start adding devices that "Work with Google" but cannot be controlled through Google Home directly (i.e. through third-party linked services)? Alternatively, is Google looking to add the Presence Sensing starter to custom routines?

Currently, controlling such devices can be done through setting up Custom Routines that run scenes designed in the linked service. However, there is no way to link both Presence Sensing and Custom Routines.

Chris_
Community Member

Can you add more trigger options like motion sensor door sensor and when device status changes?