You Can Use Gemini to Create Google Home Automation, but Is It Worth It?
Smart devices themselves are elegant but unambiguous. You can turn things on and off, adjust the volume or brightness, or tell the vacuum cleaner where to go. But automation is what makes smart homes awesome: you network your devices, create dependencies, and set up if/then, then/then scenarios to perform tasks automatically. Creating such automation always requires some finesse, but now Google’s Gemini AI offers to set up the automation for you.
When I tested this new feature, I hoped that it was aimed at non-professionals who might be intimidated by the basic process of creating automation. Instead, I discovered a feature designed for advanced users who want to dive into using a new tool called the Script Editor (Google’s tool for writing custom automations). Most users won’t have automation tools that require anything more than the standard home automation wizard that has always been there, meaning they won’t need to open the script editor or ask Gemini for help here – which is great because This feature doesn’t seem to be fully baked in yet. These features may become useful in the future as sophisticated smart home automation systems become more powerful and necessary, but for now, I’ve found Gemini to be unable to offer foolproof assistance.
Google Home, Gemini and Script Editor
There are three key components to automating with Google services. First up is Google Home . It’s your home base for all your smart home devices, your Wi-Fi status and settings, and most importantly, your automation. If you want to turn on a light bulb, you can do so by pressing a button or asking Google Assistant. But if you don’t want to ask, the automation will turn on the lights based on criteria you set, such as the time of day, activity on another device, or a specific phrase you say to the Assistant. You just need to create an automation in Google Home by telling it to do so, and there’s a simple setup wizard to help you do it. Google Home recently added a desktop app that’s still in beta, but you can also create automations and control your smart home from your computer.
Gemini , on the other hand, is Google’s large language model and AI chatbot. The company is integrating Gemini into all sorts of Google features, including a chatbot available on iPhone and Android. It’s most useful right now as an assistant that opens in the sidebar of most Google apps and can answer questions in real language. It can already do this in Gmail , finding content or clarifying the language you’re using, and in Google Meet , taking meeting notes on your behalf. In theory, using Gemini to create automations for users would be a great feature, but it turns out that using Gemini is actually more complicated than using the current wizard.
Most Google products, including Sheets and Docs, have had a script editor called Apps script for some time, but it’s not used often. Aimed primarily at advanced users, this feature allows you to create your own scripts or insert scripts written by other people to perform tasks that your products don’t do by default. The new script editor for Google Home is similar. Although it uses a different language ( YAML ) than Application Script, the goal is the same: to allow power users to do more than the Automation Wizard allows.
How to Set Up Automation in Google Home
The current custom process for creating automations in Google Home is easy for simple tasks, but any tasks that overshadow what the current automation wizard would do could theoretically require a script editor. (For the record, I’ve been actively using Google Home for five years and have never had to use the script editor for even one of my dumb automation ideas). If you’re not a programmer, the script editor in any Google product can be intimidating, so having Gemini handle it for you will be a big help if it works. But that was not my experience.
To receive Gemini assistance, you will need to subscribe to services.
Now a few comments. It actually requires you to give Google permission to activate Gemini on your phone. I’ve been avoiding this since I activated my new Pixel a few weeks ago, but for the purposes of this article, I decided it was time to dive deeper. While Gemini is endlessly useful, it is not free in some cases. You’ll also need to join the public preview of the app to access the script editor. It was a few simple steps. Open the Google Home app , go to Settings , and tap Join Public Preview .
Gemini is easier to access in the desktop app.
Google calls this assist lift from Gemini the “Help Me Script.” To be perfectly clear, using a script editor on any day is not for the weak. Its YAML code language is technically easier to write than other code bases such as Php, Perl, Ruby or Javascript. However, if you don’t know YAML, you’ll have to learn, and it’s still code. Personally, I expect that if you pay for Gemini’s help, you won’t need to know YAML. I found that this is not the case.
Once you’ve signed up for the preview and activated Gemini, you can open the Scenario Editor in the Google Home app or web interface.
This was my first time using the web interface, but since copying and pasting is required, I would suggest using it on top of the app. Plus, Gemini didn’t want to show up in my app, so that gave me even more reason to use the desktop interface.
Most of the Gemini scripts had errors.
To start, I asked for help with a simple automation that could be done in the wizard: tell me when it’s sunset every day. This automation doesn’t require any devices, just a ready-made piece of data that Google already has. (“What time is sunset?”) The twins spat out the code and told me to copy it, paste it into the script editor and test it, but warned me that it already had a bug. The script editor also confirmed this and identified the problematic line of code. Mouse over explained why I saw the error and was able to fix it.
This happened over and over again when I asked Gemini to create a script for something relatively simple (“turn on the backyard lights when the backyard camera detects activity”) and got errors. Sometimes the script editor could explain them, sometimes not. But Gemini, an AI chatbot designed to answer user questions, didn’t have a feature that could help me solve the problem. A little digging on the internet turned out to be futile as each type of device has different possible commands and everything I read suggested that the commands written by Gemini should work. Remember, I haven’t asked Gemini to do anything complicated yet, all the automation I’ve asked would be very easy to do in a regular automation panel, without a script editor or Gemini.
If you’ve managed to get the hang of the script editor (I was able to work out some bugs with some hints and some research), you save the script and then it appears in your list of automation tools. You can turn it on and off as you wish, and when it is activated, you will see it in your automation history.
Who is the Script Editor and Help Me Script for?
Like I said, I’m an automation enthusiast and I have a ton of them. I code too. Despite both of these facts, I would argue that most people won’t need a script editor, but there are a few examples where it makes sense. Anything that has a double dependency will use the script editor. For example, if I want the fan to turn on when the temperature is above 80 degrees, I can do that in Google Home. I can also turn on the fan if it’s dark outside. What I can’t do is require both circumstances unless I’m using a script editor. Additionally, the script editor allowed me to set conditions such as “if the temperature is above 80 degrees, turn on the fan, and if below 60, turn on the heater.”
You can combine these situations using a variety of automation tools that are not associated with Google Home, but a script editor would be a more efficient way to do this in one clean user flow. Unfortunately, you’ll still need to learn YAML for this to happen, because Gemini Help won’t do your homework for you: for the most part, and for most people, Gemini just isn’t ready. to write an automation script for you.