"Turn on" room lights no longer does any more than 9 of the 12

[tkirk]

Sometime in March, a standard daily "Hey Google, turn on the Pretty Lights" would no longer turn on all 12 smart plugs assigned to the "Pretty Lights" group/room (response: "Nine lights on."). Now it only turns on the first 9 in that list. One can manually turn on each the others (Pretty Light 10, Pretty Light 11, Pretty Light 12) by app or by voice. Then, saying, "Hey Google, turn off the Pretty Lights" will turn off all 12 in the group (response: "Twelve lights off.").

Did something change limiting things to nine in a room/group?

[SmartHomeH-TAGS]

Try Reconnecting the brand's app to Google Home in 'Works with Google' on Settings page.

[tkirk]

Thanks. I'll try that. Ironic that it will turn them off as part of the group, but not on.

[tkirk]

Also, they can be turned on individually via voice command.

[tkirk]

More interesting findings, IMHO.

1. Start with all lights off in Google Home app
2. Tap the group and all 12 lights come on
3. Tap the group again and all 12 lights go off
4. Go to a Google Home Mini, say "Hey, Google, turn on the Pretty Lights" and it turns Pretty Lights 01 through 09 and responds, "Nine lights on."
5. To the same Google Home Mini, say "Hey, Google, turn off the Pretty Lights" and it turns them off and responds, "Twelve lights off," even though only nine were on.
6. Open Gemini on my Pixel 9 and ask it to "Turn on the Pretty Lights" and it turns on all twelve.
7. Ask Gemini to "Turn off the Pretty lights" and it turns off all twelve.

So, Google Home sees the group, in the app it responds to selection of the group to turn the entire group of twelve on or off. Gemini also handles all twelve in the group when asked to turn that group on. The "Hey, Google" request of the same on the Google Home Mini does only the first nine. It will follow voice commands, "Hey, Google, turn on Pretty Light 10, Pretty Light 11, and Pretty Light 12" successfully.

So, Google Home knows they are there, but something about "Hey, Google..." appears to be amiss.

[SmartHomeH-TAGS]

So, Reconnecting the apps didn't work? Were they all the same brand?

1. Are all 12 "Pretty Lights" located in the same Google Home Room as the Mini?

2. If so then the command "Turn on Lights" from that Mini speaker should work too. 

Note: Resist from using "the" in the command as sometimes this can confuse the assistant somehow.

3. From another Room or phone use the command "Turn on lights in (Room name)"

[tkirk]

Thanks.

They are all the same brand. The Mini in this scenario is in a different Room. Another Mini is in a different Room has the same effect. The "Pretty Lights" is a Google Home Room. From a physical standpoint, these Pretty Lights are outlets to which decorative lights are attached through our home. Think salt lamps, curio cabinets, etc.

I appreciate your time, but I'm going to pursue this as a bug with Google. I will definitely report back any changes.

[gmelanymelissa]

Hi there!

Thanks for posting here in the community. I'm sorry to hear that the group lights no longer turn on. Since the command used to activate all 12 lights now only switches on the first 9 devices in the group's configuration, I appreciate all the efforts you've made to resolve this inconvenience. I'm happy to help!

Being more specific by using clear and concise language ensures that the Google Home Mini correctly recognizes your commands. Please try the following steps:

• Say the voice command, “Hey Google, sync all devices."
• Rename the light bulbs
• As a final step, try creating an automation that turns the lights on or off, with the trigger set to Google Assistant.

Let me know if you have further questions.

Best regards,

Melany

[tkirk]

Been a while, forgot to reply.

Tried the "sync all devices," but no different.

Irony: Asking "Hey, Google, turn on all lights" works correctly and includes all 18 we have across multiple rooms.  So, it is not that it cannot control those other three outlets.

Turning them off works. The individual lights work, but that "room" as the request, "Turn on Pretty Lights," will iterate only through 9, not 10, 11, and 12. Of course, "Turn off Pretty Lights" will turn off all 12 if they are on. 🙂

[tkirk]

ROFL! I just realized in varying my speech and word patterns (things like including/excluding the word "the") that it was confused by the room "Pretty Lights" and the lights/switches/outlets therein ("Pretty Light 01" and "Pretty Light 02," etc). So referring to "Pretty Lights" was apparently inferred as the light names sometimes instead of the room name.

So, I changed the room name to "Decorative Lights" and left all the 12 outlets named "Pretty Light XX" and now it does not get confused. Brought it on myself to some extent, but it would appear Google's goal to infer a request as intent at multiple does not first consider the possibility the object of the request exists as a room and to proceed no further.

[tkirk]

Still likely an anomaly that it would only iterate through 9 of 12, but no longer a pain for me. 🙂