You Can Now Let Trusted Friends and Family Control Your Google Home
Smart home control means you’ll never again have to manually flip a switch or get up to adjust a thermometer. At home, where you know the daily routine and voice comments and, most importantly, have access to a home hub, they are ideal. But for housekeepers or visitors to family and friends who simply want the lights to turn on or off, this is problematic. Previously, you could either give full access to Google Home to anyone you wanted to be able to control your smart home, or let them take a chance and force your voice assistant to answer. The problem is that once they gain access, they can also cause some damage by accidentally deleting smart devices or messing with settings. Last week, Google took the first steps toward addressing this issue by testing user levels for Google Home . It is currently only available to select users registered in Google Public Preview , Google’s beta testing program.
There are currently only two user levels: administrator and member. User layers are popular in software and services, so they’re probably not a new concept to most. Each user level has a hierarchy of permissions. In this case, administrators will still have all the permissions that everyone with access previously had. They can add and remove devices, move them from room to room, rename them, etc. Administrator is another way of saying “full control.” While I couldn’t find any difference in permissions between “Administrator” and “Owner”, I would be surprised if there wasn’t one. Typically, some controls can only be affected by the owner, that is, the person who installed the device or software.
Members have limited access. Basically they can control devices. For example, they can’t add a new robot vacuum cleaner, but they can launch one. What’s even more interesting is that they can also change personal settings such as facial and voice recognition. You can offer your members two additional types of access. “Activity” gives them the ability to view a history of activity on the device, and “Settings” gives them some basic access to change device settings and add automation.
I have a smart home and have dogs or babysitters constantly and this solves a huge problem. As a basic security practice, I like the fact that I can grant and then revoke access to participants, giving them only the access they need and only for as long as they need it. I immediately granted access to my neighbor because we often go into each other’s houses to water plants, put a bag inside, or feed a pet.
Please remember that you must be enrolled in the public preview. Once done, you can add a new admin or member by going to Google Home and opening Settings. Click on the new “Family & Sharing” menu, click the “+” in the top right corner and add the email address of the person you want to invite. They’ll receive an email invitation and will need to install the Google Home app, but won’t have to participate in the public preview themselves.