Playing radio station from an automation currently does not work

[Jong1]

Not a lot more to say, frankly. Still using Google Assistant. If I ask with my voice to "Listen to Radio [X] it still works perfectly. However if I use the same as a text command in an automation it tries to find a Spotify playlist for"Radio [X]" instead. This happens whether the automation starts automatically, if I manually start it from the Home app or if I ask the Nest Mini to start the automation with my voice.

Obviously means my radio alarm is currently broken 😞

[Kadven · Accepted solution]

Hi @Jong1 

Try the following:

In the automation rather than selecting the 'Play and control media' option select the 'Try adding your own' option then use the phrase 'Play Radio X' or possibly 'Play Radio X from Global Player'. Tested this and it worked on mine.

Alternatively select the 'Play and control media option' then the 'Radio' option then just the phrase 'Radio X'. e.g. no 'Listen to'. Tried this on mine and it also worked.

If you select the play media option and radio and add the complete phrase 'Play Radio X' or 'Listen to Radio X', then for some reason it will start searching Spotify.

In creating Automations I tend to always use the 'Try adding your own' option for virtually everything since it seems to be a bit more reliable.

Good luck.

[Jong1]

Hi, sorry if I wasn't clear, but I was adding my own phrase, just using "Listen to...." instead of "Play...". Was working until the middle of last week but now consistently fails as an automation (whether verbally triggered, manually triggered or triggered on a timer) but still works as a spoken command. But, thanks for the suggestion. Changing the text to "Play..." Instead of "Listen to" works 🙄. Why do they keep changing things.

[Kadven]

HI @Jong1 

Understand your frustration as to why these things change with no notice.  May well be down to Google making unannounced changes or may even be down to Spotify, since I believe the system may just link into Spotify's own audio recognition systems by default when Spotify is linked as your music provider.

Glad things now seem to be working now though.

[Jong1]

Previously I'm pretty sure "Play...." triggered Spotify and I needed to use "Listen....." to listen to the radio station 🤷‍😂