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sleep routines are broken.

ObiTaz
Community Member

There are  so many people who have reported sleep timers not working anymore, yet nothing is being done.

my bedtime routine used to play relaxing sounds for an hour then stop. then a few months ago it just won't stop. you can tell the routine to "play ocean sounds for 1 hour" in the routine. it has no issue with the command, except after 1hr it fails to stop!. 

After lots of googling, I tried starting the sounds, setting  a delay then setting a custom command to "stop music". to which google replies "sorry there was a problem ... ". what's worse is that from this point I can't even tell Google to stop! I have go in to the home app and stop it casting. 

so for anyone reading this with the same issue. This works (found on reddit)

in the bedtime routine,

1. "play ocean sounds"

2. set a delay for how long you want it playing.

3. After the delay. " play 23 seconds of silence" 

assuming you have Spotify, this will play a track by Wilco. for 23 seconds 😀. then stop. 

 

hope this helps.

1 Recommended Answer

Mark102
Community Member

It seems the problem may finally be fixed!  I've tested it a few times today on different devices, and the music/sounds now stop as they're supposed to.  

View Recommended Answer in original post

17 REPLIES 17

Nest0r
Community Member

It's insane to me that they can't figure this one out. I used to listen to Audible on my phone, then, when they finally allowed casting to Google home natively, it turns out the Google Devs destroyed the sleep timer.

 

And their reasoning is people didn't like ambient sounds stopping after an hour.

 

So either, the Google Devs rolled out an update aimed at ambient noises and completely shredded the sleep function wholesale; or they couldn't create an option to control a span of time for ambient sounds and decided to turn the sleep option off completely.

Both options are an indictment.

kiltguy2112
Silver Product Expert
Silver Product Expert

It's been reported that Google killed off sleep timers. I've only seen it in one place, so please take it with a grain of salt.

https://chromeunboxed.com/google-assistant-music-sleep-timer-end-time-removed

Mark102
Community Member

It seems the problem may finally be fixed!  I've tested it a few times today on different devices, and the music/sounds now stop as they're supposed to.  

ObiTaz
Community Member

Tried it last night. Just a simple "play thunderstorms for 1 hour" and you'll be pleased to know that I wasn't woken at some stupid hour to thunderstorms still playing 😀. Looks like a fix to me.. 

Princesss
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hi folks, 

 

Thanks for posting in the Community.

 

@ObiTaz, @Mark102, Glad to know that everything is working good now on your end. 

 

For others, can anyone here chime in if you are still experiencing issues on sleep routines? Let us know so we can get back to you.

 

Best,

Princess

Still experiencing... 😕

IvoJ
Community Member

No only one of the workarounds works. (‘Play x for 1 hour’).

but:

- The ‘start sleeping sounds’ action you can choose in the routines still allows no end time to be set and plays all night. 
- adding a stop command after it doesn’t work because ‘media actions play after all other actions’ so the stop ends up doing nothing. 

so only manually saying every night ‘play x for 1 hour’ works and that’s still a crude manual workaround. So I wouldn’t call this ‘fixed’ if you can’t make this a standard part of the sleep routine. 

ObiTaz
Community Member

Yes, this is a weird problem that you can't use the in built 'play sleep sounds' and then add anything after.

As you point out, you can manually say 'play x for y hours' which works. 

But you can also do this in the routine by adding a custom action.

Ditch the play media option and replace it with a custom action of 'play x for y hours'. this is what I do now.

 

I'm trying the command "play rain on tent sounds 10 hour black screen from YouTube music on -speaker for 8 hours" We will see in the morning.

Nest0r
Community Member

I still try it every few nights, and it still doesn't work.

 

I usually use audible to stream to my Google home, and then set a timer on audible. No chance. It keeps playing without end.

ObiTaz
Community Member

have you tried setting the timer on the Google home mini? i.e. " stop music in 1 hour"

Yes. It stops the music immediately.

Juni
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hi folks,
 

I hope everyone is doing well. The relaxing sound or Ambient sound feature will continue to play for 12 hours if not turned off. To turn off ambient sounds, say "Hey Google, stop." Adding another action after the media is not available. We appreciate people who are keen on sharing their thoughts with us. We're always looking for ways to improve. I'd suggest you submit feedback about it, here's how.

 

If you have further questions feel free to update this thread.


Regards,

Juni

SarahMarie
Community Member

I was able to get my music to stop by saying “hey google, set a sleep timer for 6am.” You MUST use the word “timer” here. If you use the word “alarm”… it plays an actual alarm noise. The terms are not interchangeable.

Muddi
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey everyone,

 

It's been some time since this thread was updated. Does anyone here need assistance?

 

@SarahMarie: Thanks for sharing a workaround.

 

Cheers,

Muddi

Muddi
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey folks,

 

I just wanted to check if anyone still need help here? Feel free to update the thread and the Community will be happy to lend a hand.

 

Cheers,

Muddi

Princesss
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hello everyone,

 

Due to inactivity, I'll go ahead and lock this thread in 24 hours. Feel free to start a new thread if you need assistance with your Google Nest devices and we'd be glad to assist you further.
 

Best,

Princess