Script Editor: Share your ideas and vote on others' ideas!

[Prafulla]

We built the Google Home script editor to give you more control over your home automations (announcement post). We are still in the early days of the script editor, and we highly value feedback and ideas from our community to shape its future.

You can use this post to:

• Share ideas that will help you build your next scripted automation
• Vote on other people's ideas by clicking the "Kudos" button next to the idea

How do I submit an idea? Can I submit more than one idea?

To submit an idea, simply click the "Reply" button below this post and add your idea in the following format:

• Idea: Weather as a starter 
• Example automation: If it's about to rain today, remind me to carry my umbrella.

We encourage you to submit as many ideas as you like, but please use one comment per idea so that it's easy for others to vote on your ideas.

How do I vote for an idea? Can I vote on more than one idea?

To vote for an idea, simply click the "Kudos" button next to the idea that helps you with your use case. Please use your votes thoughtfully so that we can clearly understand what matters to you the most.

Will my idea be implemented? Will the top-voted idea be implemented?

We will do our best to prioritize what is important across our entire community and look at feedback across many channels throughout the product cycle. We will very actively use your feedback in our prioritization exercise, but cannot make any guarantees or promises that you'll see your idea/feedback implemented into the product. That said, we will do our best to address the pain points and problems our community is trying to solve.

We look forward to hearing your ideas!

Prafulla Rawal, Senior Product Manager, Google Home

[Cathal_S]

Hi there,

There's already the 'gentle sleep or wake' feature available.

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9304145 

[jgolliher]

Wow- you learn something everyday! Thanks!

[Cathal_S]

Happy to help, let us know if you have any issues with this feature.

[Prafulla]

+1. To add you can pass in these custom Assistant commands as an script editor action.

actions:
- type: assistant.command.OkGoogle
  devices: My Speaker - Room Name
  okGoogle: Wake the lights in <room name>

[William1701]

While the Home Hub offers this feature, the script routines would allow a more custom "wake-up" function than just the lighting effect on the Hub screen, or automation through a lighting app.

[Cathal_S]

I would like to see a custom option where we can write assistant commands within the script editor.

e.g.....

Thanks 👍

[Prafulla]

Hi @Cathal_S - This is already possible. You can use OkGoogleCommand to run any custom Assistant command via the script editor.

actions:
- type: assistant.command.OkGoogle
  devices: My Speaker - Room Name
  okGoogle: Tell me the weather

[Cathal_S]

Great, thanks 👍

I have only had a short amount of time to experiment with this myself.

Looking forward to trying this out tomorrow.

[Cathal_S]

Thank you for taking your time this weekend and past few days to help everyone here.

[Diazed]

Idea: Manage smartphone settings with actions

Example Automation: Mute my phone when I am home and the sun sets. Enter other things here.

[BrienGerber]

• Idea: Google maps information as a starter/condition
• Example automation: I could in theory execute some kind of "Ok Google, text mom and dad that I'm home", when I unlock my garage door, but only if I was previously at their house via Google maps data within X amount of time. 

[themiddlehelper]

Hello! My idea for the script editor is to add a outside weather condition starter (ex. When temperature outside to a certain temperature, a severe weather alert is pushed out (tornado, hurricane, etc.) or the conditions/temperature for a certain time. I hope you consider this idea Google! I would love to see it!

[BrienGerber]

• Idea: Allow for the separate nest temperature sensors that can be placed anywhere in the house to be starters/conditions. Right now it appears to only be for the thermostat itself. 

[BrienGerber]

• Idea: Allow for an action (and possibly starter/condition) to turn on the fan only for the Nest Thermostat and not the heating/cooling. I imagine this doesn't exist because I don't think you can do this at all in the Google Home app yet (only Nest app still)

[timb0slice7]

Idea: Add starters, actions, and conditions for routine state (ie activated or deactivated)

Example Automation: You want to turn all the lights off when you are away, but you have a babysitter coming to watch your kids. You want to disable the away routine, so that when you leave home it doesn't turn off all the lights on the babysitter and leave them in the dark. You could make a routine that allows you to deactivate the Away routine temporarily. "Hey Google, turn off away routine".

[BrienGerber]

My comment here doesn't disprove your idea (it is a good one), but just pointing out you could solve this with something like a smart plug that just acts as an overall on/off switch for your routines. You could add a condition to all of these routines to say "if my on/off switch is not pressed"

[Eurik123]

This is really expensive 

[timb0slice7]

As a quick fix to the problem and since I already have a spare plug, I love this idea! Thanks!

Hopefully we still get it as a feature of the automation scripts, it seems like an easy thing to implement. And as Eurik mentioned it could get expensive if you want to implement several.

[jstutz]

Just link smartthings with google home and create a virtual switch or bulb, same basic idea as using the smart switch, just don't need the actual switch!

[timb0slice7]

Idea: Starters based on phone state (ie docked, USB charging, wireless charging, WiFi connection, etc)

Example: You want to automatically trigger a bedtime routine (turn off lights, turn on inside cameras). You could set a routine with a starter for charging with conditions for night time and home presence = home. Then turn off all the lights downstairs and turn on the inside security cameras.

[timb0slice7]

Idea: Allow option to specify device for assistant.event.OkGoogle and/or allow a condition based on which device is being used for an assistant.event.OkGoogle command.

Example: You have multiple couch lamps. You could make a single routine for "Hey Google, turn on the couch lamp". Then use a conditional to turn on the lamp in the room you spoke the command. Or you could have multiple routines (one for each room) "Hey Google, turn on the couch lamp" device = family room --> turn on the family room couch lamp.

[aredos]

Idea: Adding a speaker to the current music playback

Example Automation: When a motion sensor detects presence, the music playback can be expanded to the room with presence. The functionality should be similar to how speakers can be added and removed for the current music playback in the Google Home app.

[jstutz]

Yes please!

Had this thought when script editor was first announced.. had a basic automation written up and implemented, if backdoor open then trigger google assistant action to move to group that included backyard speaker... it worked, but the problem was if music wasn't playing on that device it would try to move anything else playing to the backyard speaker.. it happened when somebody was watching tv on the living chromecast, the speaker would say sorry that's not supported with this.. slightly annoying but I could live with it, but the real deal killer was when the nest minis in the kids rooms were playing white noise and then the backdoor would open and move it to the backyard speaker... 

the fact that you can't use whether a speaker is playing music as a condition is baffling..

[Mlisko]

Idea: Incoming text message/call from specific number as a starter 
Example automation: The light will come on when a text message/call is received. 

In my case, I would appreciate it very much, because in our country with volunteer fire departments, the alarm is announced by text/call and when that alarm is announced, my lights could go on and I wouldn't have to worry about the lights going on and off.

[lasantosr]

Idea: Allow for some misc or sandbox top-level dummy field 

Motivation: Variables seems to allow dynamic inputs, maybe even provided by the user at runtime given that they have selectors, but it would be nice to have some kind of static variables for the script itself, just to reduce code duplication (maybe a condition, group of devices, actions or whatever).

I've just confirmed that the script editor supports yaml anchors and labels, but you have to define them on the first usage (wherever it's it, maybe on 100th line) and just reuse them later, which doesn't allow you to have a quick look at all defined labels. It would be great if the editor schema allowed a misc (or similar) object at top level that doesn't do anything, just to define anchors.

Example: 

misc:
  msg: &msg Hello, world!
  audio-devices: &audio-devices
    - Nest Audio - Room 1
    - Nest Mini - Room 2

automations:
  - starters:
      - type: assistant.event.OkGoogle
        eventData: query
        is: hey

    actions:
      - type: assistant.command.Broadcast
        message: *msg
        devices: *audio-devices

[chrispatrik]

Idea: Customizable notifications to a specific person's phone

Example automation: A motion sensor or camera detects the presence of someone and sends a notification that overrides Do Not Disturb and has a custom sound so it will come through while sleeping and be easy to identify as important. It could be used for any type of event to get instantly notified that something happened that I want to know about.

[Shackabadoo]

Oops.. I just submitted more or less the same suggestion. Saw this one too late, but I have upvoted yours.

[Bawt]

Idea: Add the ability to provide a code for devices requesting it.

Example:

Some devices such as somfy windows require a security code to be opened by a third party app and I couldn't find a good way to provide that code using a script. My current workaround is to use assistant.event.OkGoogle to first open a window and then another one to provide the code but this is quite buggy. I imagine it should work like that:

    actions:
      - type: device.command.OpenClose
        devices: device name - room
        openPercent: 100
        code: 0000

---

[Shackabadoo]

Idea: Send a voice- or text-message to a person's mobile phone

Example automation: With the "assistant.command.Broadcast" action you can send a message to any google device in your home (google speaker /  hub / chromecast). I would like to send a (text of voice) message to a person's mobile phone when certain conditions/events are met.

[Cathal_S]

I would like to see a Home Assistant link (API call) so that I can link my local automations (that support more devices and conditions etc...) to activate a script on the cloud script editor. And vice versa.

[jstutz]

Allow device.state.MediaState  to work with Nest Audio and the other google home speakers.. 

I can't be the only one who wants to run automations based on if music is playing right?

[etchings13]

Yes! This seems like it would be effortless to implement.

[AJ231]

Idea: Have Google TV start playing a streaming service or Movie

Example Automation: After a certain starter, such as time or Ok Google, the TV would turn on to either a specific movie or streaming service. This way, with a single phrase or time, a specific film in your library or show on your streaming service can start. Can be useful for parents trying to play shows such as Bluey or play certain media at specific times a day when you are away to make it seem like you are home.

[Cathal_S]

@AJ231 

This should already be possible, using the OkGoogleCommand 

if you can already ask the Google assistant to do this then it should be able to be scheduled.

[Diazed]

A real action for this would still be pretty nice.

Could easily set the media source and target devices.

I personally would like to trigger those NestHub relaxing sounds on two devices for my nightly routine. It's already hard enough to make the assisstan start the right app and not search on spotify for thunder sounds.

[jwoerner89]

Idea: When nest protect occupancy sensor is triggered (or pathlight) have the ability to turn on other lights for set period of time. 

[Ryano8583]

Idea: Action that allows for controlling the "Do not disturb" setting of a device, like the Google Nest speaker.

Example automation: When it is the kids' nap time, tell Google Assistant to run the automation where it will turn the "Do not disturb" setting for the given device on. Then after a timer delay runs, it would turn the "Do not disturb" setting for the given device back off.

[Shackabadoo]

Idea: If - then - else conditions

Example automation: At sunset I want to switch on all lights in my living room if I am at home or only one when I am away. To do that now, I need two separate scripts with the same starters (sunset) and opposite conditions (HOME / AWAY).

[jstutz]

Agreed! this would lead to a lot less duplicate automations..

I've basically had to run the same automation twice just with different conditions. Thankfully copy and paste does speed up the process quiet a bit!

[lasantosr]

• Idea: Date as condition (date.between)
• Example automation: I might want to perform some actions on summer and different ones on winter.