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]

@James28 

Google have definitely indicated that they are planning Nest cameras motion activated events sometime in the future.

[chrispatrik]

Let's hope they distinguish between a person and the wind (or sun), otherwise it would be worthless. "Motion detected" should be separate from "Person detected", and a specific person would be wonderful. It would add so much value to the cameras.

I don't have high hopes because they don't even have separate notification types in the nest app even though they obviously have that information available, so there is no way to ignore the wind and sun (which I get 5-10 times a day), but notify me when a  person is seen, which is a bit more important.

[Cathal_S]

I'm hoping along with you 🙏

[Beberd]

Whooo, it's looks like a dangerous thing no?

[William1701]

Overall request: If the feature is visible/adjustable/definable from within the Google Home App, it would be great to see it as a starter, condition, and action for the script editor. 

Stretch request: Measurements that smart products use, such as light levels for a motion sensor, would be wonderful as a starter or condition.

[Prafulla · Accepted solution]

Hi everyone,

First of all, a huge thank you for your feedback and ideas!  The engagement here has truly exceeded our expectations, and we couldn't be more grateful for your participation.

As mentioned above, we cannot make any guarantees or promises that we will implement every idea, but we are actively considering all of this feedback as we prioritize future development.

In the meantime, we encourage you to keep sharing your ideas and upvoting the ideas of others.

Thank you again for your time and input.

Prafulla Rawal, Senior Product Manager, Google Home

[HenriDo776]

Hi,

Wouldn't it be great to bridge Google Apps Script and Google Automation Script?

Imagine being able to launch an automation workflow as soon as you receive an email. This would open up a world of possibilities for automating tasks and workflows.

HDR

[williamsbella12]

https://support.google.com/googletv/contact/googletvconnect_chat?sjid=10608113943546366149-EU

[steve711]

• Idea: Add a way to disable Face Recognition Notifications for specific individuals (like me and my wife)
  
• Example automation: If you recognize my face or my wife's face at the Nest Doorbell Camera (battery) or a Nest Cam (Battery), do not send me a Notification. No clue, not an iota of knowledge for creating the script.
  

Here's a MacroDroid example of how it can work if someone can figure out how o create a script (hat tip to Alex2303)...

Download MacroDroid: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.arlosoft.macrodroid
Tap "Macros" at the bottom of the screen
Tap "+" at the bottom of the screen
In "Enter macro name", type "Home familiar faces" (for example)
Tap "+" in "Triggers"
Tap "Device Events"
Tap "Notification"
"Notification Received" > OK
"Select Application(s)" > OK
Search for the "Home" app > Select > Include > OK
Select "Any"
Uncheck all checkboxes
Tap OK
Tap "+" in "Actions"
Tap "Notification"
Tap "Clear Notifications"
"Select Application(s)" > OK
Search for the "Home" app > Select > Include > OK
Select "Matches"
Select "Enable regular expression matching"
In "Enter text to match", type ".*(Person1|Person2|Person3).*(seen).*" (replace "PersonX" with real names from your face library)
Uncheck other checkboxes
Tap OK
Tap the 3 dots on the top right
Tap "Save changes"
Tap on "MacroDroid Mode: Standard" in the notification center
Disable "Persistent notification"

This will hide notifications like:

"Alex seen"
"Alex • Activity or animal seen"
"Sarah and Alex seen"

You will still receive notifications like the below (unknown persons or IA taking some time to recognize the person):

"Person seen"
"Unfamilar face seen"
"Activity or animal seen"

[ha11sy]

Suggestion: Specific devices connected to wifi as a trigger.

Would like to setup an Automation for my son when he comes home from school. I will know he is home as his phone connects to the Google WiFi network, I could then use that connection as a trigger to then run some automation tasks.

[Sir_McSquish]

Custom Sound notification:

Examples:

If my home presence is AWAY and someone rings the Nest Hello  have one of my Mini play a dog barking.

If someone opens a door with a contact sensor, have a different chime for each sensor  play on a speaker without needing to have Google Broadcast a message "the front door opened". 

To annoy my Wife,  when my Vacuum "Dirt Vader" starts I should be able to play the imperial March on a chosen  speaker.  

[Sir_McSquish]

Ok well technically got the last one working using Spotify and ok Google. I succeeded in getting an eye roll from my wife. 

[Sir_McSquish]

Currently My Honeywell T10 Pro Thermostat and RedLink temp/humidity sensors only report the temperature. These devices also report humidity in the Resideo app but not in Google Home. It would be swell to have device.state.HumiditySetting detected to tell the Thermostat to adjust to a set temperature until resolved. 

The sensors also have built in motion detection to determine room occupancy which are again visible in the Resideo app but this is not passed to Google Home to leverage motion detection. Would be useful to avoid having to by a different motion sensor and use the ones built in  leveraging device.state.MotionDetection or device.state.OccupancySensing,  

[Sir_McSquish]

Also being able to turn on heat/cool settings based on ambient temperature would also be great since Honeywell is a well known thermostat brand I'm surprised Google Home can't see this setting

[Franz-Xaver]

Idea: google calendar appointment as a starter

Example automation: Turn on a special light or the heat if a appointment is in a calendar.

[ha11sy]

Sounds delicious. I too want the script tool to make me food. 

[Sir_McSquish]

How about "undo/redo" buttons in the mobile app version of Google Home.

[Pat_]

That already works using the usual keyboard shortcuts you know from Word and other programs. (They depend on your language settings, I could only give you the German ones...)

[Sir_McSquish]

My Google Pixel keyboard lacks a CTRL key. Talking about the mobile app only, not the web.

[Pat_]

Your wishes were heard. I saw they put just that into the mobile app script editor. 

Below the code you'll see the » symbol with everything you wished for. 

It's honestly stunning how things are changing, evolving and taking shape right in front of you. 

[Sir_McSquish]

Routine should end if starter is no longer valid so adding a "Do while" option would be useful. For example I have a routine that runs when the front door opens, it broadcasts that the door is open and turns on a virtual switch. When the door is closed the switch turns off. 

I have another routine that uses the virtual switch state with the condition that the front door is open to broadcast another message after 20 secs reminding to close the door, and again after 40 secs. 

The issue im running into is that regardless of how long the door is open, as soon as the virtual switch turns on, the routine starts. If the door closes before the 20 secs warning, the message is still broadcast at both intervals. 

[Pat_]

Here's another thing I'd like to suggest:

I'd like to add a widget to my home screen that activates one of those scripted routines, just the way it's possible to do so with the "regular" routines.

[Kndyer]

Idea: Allow setting of light attributes without turning the light on

Use Case:

Presence sensing to turn on a night-light.
light turns on w low brightness, and a night-friendly colour (eg: red)
light sleeps in 5mins
light is returned to it’s default colour/brightness <— I don’t want this to turn the light back on

[Sebius]

Idea : starter on season or as condition on the day of the year

[JJS139]

Idea:  expose eventData for Familiar face so automation could occur for certain faces

Automation: If Mailman at front door send message to household

[kessleynogueira]

Idea: Instead of all automation being based on a condition, each action could have its own condition.

Example: I want to tell Google "Time to sleep", and then it turns off the lights, says good night and if the gate or doors sensor is open, it will close it using a pulse switch. In this case, if I put all the automation depending on the status of the sensor, if it is closed, it won't turn off the lights or say good night.

[rsc]

Why did Google 86 the ability to set Nest camera motion as a starter? Pls restore!!!

That functionality briefly appears in the Home app (automations) about a month or so ago. I still have the automation I created: Starter>(one of my nest in/outdoor wireless cams), Action>(turns on two of my outdoor lights via 3rd party app 'works with' integration.

That automation is still there but I can no longer add camera motion as a starter. Does this have to do with Google's nixing of the Nest Secure (which I have) & partnership with ADT to sell monitored security packages? Honest feedback pls, can't see why they added that feature & took it away when it was (is) working fine. Pls restore or explain. Much appreciated.

[V0idmain]

First, thanks for putting this tool together. My house is all google devices, yet I feel like i've barely scratched the service of what we can do with it all, mostly due to me not being a big fan of the UI tapping around to make it happen. This tool makes the experience of creating complex automations much simpler, which is greatly appreciate as I've invested much into the google ecosystem. 

Sorry if this was already posted. This thread is pretty crazy.

Public Bug Tracker/Feature Tracker

• Idea: Use https://issuetracker.google.com (or similar) to allow for public tracking of feature requests and bugs. 
• Reason: You can see from this thread that there is a ton of community interest in seeing new features. A public tracker would make them easier to search/view and give greater transparency to the community. From my experience searching forums here/reddit and around on the internet to figure out if other people are having an issue or looking for a feature is challenging and frustrating for me as a user. If there is a bug, in a tracker i can just follow that and know if it is being worked on or not (status). I know this would be challenging, but it would give me more confidence in the platform and inspire me to invest further in it.

Thanks again!

[cytryniasty]

When door open and TV paused media

[ha11sy]

If you have door sensors and a Google Chrome device, this is achievable now. There is a good video here about this exact use case https://youtu.be/CaDGz8S7dvY?t=278

[Meltar]

Idea: Being able to check automations made in the app in the home web page.

As it is now, the home.google.com web lists all my previously created automations, but to get what they do I have to get my phone out, check them in the app and see the relevant data that I need for my script automations. Although editing would be ideal, being able to check what they do will take away a lot of hassle.

What is the % of light I use in the nighttime routine, so this automation does the same? At what time does this automation start, so I can make one with scripts at the same time? Wouldn't it be neat to be able to know from the same web, that is already checking my app created routines anyway?

[lstanczyk]

Idea: Only condition based automations without actions

Example: if temperature is >78F turn the fan on. 

It looks like right now I have to have some sort of action to trigger the automation, I would like to monitor device states and start actions. 

Additional scenario: Reverse actions - when conditions are no longer met, specify actions that are executed upon condition being broken.

[Beberd]

Ok, but it is possible with the automation now

[sammers]

Make device.command.LightEffectWake start at the device's current state.

Just tried to run a script and the lights were at 30%
I expected they would wake from 30, not go to 1% and start from there

[Onvisoc]

Idea: Ability to use script editor for built in automations
It would be great to be able to use the power of the script editor for automations that are already built in to the app. Such as the good morning or home/away automations.

[HansWT]

Idea: Using Nest Thermostat "run fan" or "scheduled run fan" as a trigger for other devices.

Example Automation: Nest T-Stat doesn't have a demand for heat/cool during x hour, so it activates the HVAC blower fan to circulate air during the hour for 15/30/45 minutes on low setting as a setting.  When this fan turns on, it would trigger additional circulation fan(s) within your house that are connected to Google Home.  When this fan turns off, connected circulation fan(s) turn off also. 

This is useful for older homes/HVAC systems that were not designed for central AC, but AC was added later.  These homes only have low/floor intake/blower vents and no elevated intake/blower vents which results in cold air moving across the floor and don't mix cold with existing room air due to stratification without supplemental fans added (ceiling or standalone).

Side Note: Curious in general, how to use the Nest T-Stat initiated HVAC fan as a trigger for automations. It does show up in GHA Activity, just not sure how to use this function within GHA automations as a trigger.

Thanks!

(oops, nested original post/idea under a reply of Parfulla's. Will delete it.)

[nistei]

Idea: Weather as a condition

Example: I want to close the window blinds every day at a certain time but only if the sun is shining.

[kiphat]

Idea: Ability to use device settings/state as variables.

Example:

# example 1, take attribute of other setting in device to set variable
automations:
  # On/Off
  - starters:
      - type: device.state.TemperatureSetting 
        state: thermostatMode
        is: cool
        as:
           thermostatTemperatureSetpoint: CurrentTemp # <--- Set variable
        device: Upstairs - Living Room
    actions:
      - type: device.command.ThermostatSetMode
        thermostatMode: on
        devices: Dining Room Minisplit - Dining room
      - type: device.command.ThermostatSetMode
        thermostatMode: cool
        devices: Dining Room Minisplit - Dining room
      - type: device.command.ThermostatTemperatureSetpoint
        thermostatTemperatureSetpoint: CurrentTemp  # <--- Use variable
        devices: Dining Room Minisplit - Dining room

# example 2 take attribute of current setting in device to set variable
  - starters:
      - type: device.state.TemperatureSetting
        state: thermostatTemperatureSetpoint
        is: modified, lowered, raised
        as: 
          thermostatTemperatureSetpoint: CurrentTemp   # <--- Set variable
        device: Upstairs - Living Room
    actions:
      - type: device.command.ThermostatTemperatureSetpoint
        thermostatTemperatureSetpoint: CurrentTemp  # <--- User Variable
        devices: Dining Room Minisplit - Dining room

[kmcbrearty1018]

Idea: Start and stop routines

Example automation: Routine starts playing music and then starts another routine to cycle the lights to different colors by using a color starter. Another routine stops the music, stops the cycle routine, and changes the lights back to white.

[kseet]

Idea: In the Google Home App > Activity, when you have multiple automations show the automation name instead of the metadata name.

Example:

metadata:
name: Kitchen room sensor
description: ...

automations:
- name: Set kitchen lights to Concentrate
starters: ...

- name: Set kitchen lights to Dimm
starters: ...