Nest Mini now officially launching in NZ

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52 posts

Master Geek

#2514935 30-Jun-2020 10:21

If you change your language to English US, you have a choice of 10 voices. English and Ozzie voices included, but no Kiwi voice.

tieke

674 posts

Ultimate Geek

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#2514951 30-Jun-2020 11:10

It's quite possible they'll just stick with the Aussie voice for us, which is a pity as it's one that nobody in our house can stand :)

Possibly an uncanny valley sort of effect where it's close enough to a New Zealand accent that all the Aussie differences really stand out, whereas a neutral US voice is generic enough to be not be so obvious.

allio

885 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2515036 30-Jun-2020 13:28

gazzerwgtn:

If you change your language to English US, you have a choice of 10 voices. English and Ozzie voices included, but no Kiwi voice.

Does voice recognition work as well if you set the device to US rather than Australian? I do marginally prefer the American lady to the Aussie one.

I picked up one at Bunnings to use in the kitchen. I intended to use it basically as a cheap Bluetooth speaker but the smarts are actually really cool - I like it way more than I thought. It talked me through a recipe yesterday and makes a handy kitchen timer (especially when your hands are covered in raw chicken). Tempted to get another to go in the lounge so I can order the Chromecast around...

tieke

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#2515041 30-Jun-2020 13:41

allio:

gazzerwgtn:

If you change your language to English US, you have a choice of 10 voices. English and Ozzie voices included, but no Kiwi voice.

Does voice recognition work as well if you set the device to US rather than Australian? I do marginally prefer the American lady to the Aussie one.

I've found no change in speech recognition no matter which English variant the output voice is set to.

robjg63

4100 posts

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#2515042 30-Jun-2020 13:43

I have my language set to UK english and it seems to understand me well enough.
I suppose an NZ setting would be optimal - but I haven't found any problems just yet.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

MurrayM

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#2515617 1-Jul-2020 12:03

allio:

It talked me through a recipe yesterday and makes a handy kitchen timer (especially when your hands are covered in raw chicken).

I think 90% of the time my Home Mini is used as a glorified kitchen timer.

gcorgnet

1078 posts

Uber Geek

#2515660 1-Jul-2020 14:09

Does it have any other feature???

Sharesies

Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).

Batwing

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#2515679 1-Jul-2020 14:37

It can turn my heatpump on by voice command, then turn if off again a few seconds later without me wanting it to.

As opposed to staying on if triggered via homeassistant or old school remote. At least it can think for itself I guess.

muppet

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#2515680 1-Jul-2020 14:38

I borrowed a home Mini from a workmate to try for a week.

What a freakin' joke these things are. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Google Nerd. Nexus 6, Pixel 1, Pixel 4XL. Have 2 chromecasts and 4 chromecast audios.

The Mini though, my gawd. It just doesn't understand you properly and if you don't ask it what you want in exactly the right way, it'll do just do something random instead. And to get it to play things I had to say things like "Play The Album High Risk Behaviour By The Chats on Kitchen Speaker" for it to play an Album on a Chromecast Audio. Sometimes it would say "You don't have Spotify linked" so I'd have to say (I am not making this up) "Play The Album High Risk Behaviour By The Chats On Youtube Music on Kitchen Speaker". And say it perfectly.

I thought the kids might like to ask it questions but OMG no way, it has NO home of understanding them.

I gave it back to my workmate after 3 days with a "Thank you for the trial"

I mean yea it's great for "What's the weather tomorrow" or a few other basic, basic things. If you're willing to stop, think about exactly what you need to say to it, say it loudly and clearly, then sure, it works. But as something you can just pop questions and thoughts at, it's woeful. It just gets everything so badly wrong.

Seriously, if you can, borrow one off a friend before you commit to it. Sure they're not expensive and they can act a chromecast audio device.

I expect most people use them for a week before the novelty wears off. And they probably work a lot better in the US with US English as a setting.

muppet

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#2515681 1-Jul-2020 14:40

scottjpalmer: I haven't had OK Google voice recognition working on my phone for ages. It just suddenly sprung into life when I said something about search in conversation. Maybe NZ English is now supported?

There's been a bug with Aus English and "Ok Google" for quite a while (since the start of the year) on my Pixel 4XL. Always On would stop listening after an hour or two, until you woke it up by manual trigger. It was recently fixed and started behaving properly, being able to always listen all the time again.

Probably whatever fix they deployed for that also fixed it on your phone (unless you also have a Pixel 4 which would explain it)

gbwelly

1243 posts

Uber Geek

#2515688 1-Jul-2020 14:49

muppet:

I had to say things like "Play The Album High Risk Behaviour By The Chats on Kitchen Speaker" for it to play an Album on a Chromecast Audio. Sometimes it would say "You don't have Spotify linked" so I'd have to say (I am not making this up) "Play The Album High Risk Behaviour By The Chats On Youtube Music on Kitchen Speaker". And say it perfectly.

Hmm, that hasn't been my experience. Did you set up everything in the correct room? Also sounds like your voice match sometimes didn't work and you were being treated like a visitor?

muppet

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#2515700 1-Jul-2020 15:11

gbwelly:

muppet:

I had to say things like "Play The Album High Risk Behaviour By The Chats on Kitchen Speaker" for it to play an Album on a Chromecast Audio. Sometimes it would say "You don't have Spotify linked" so I'd have to say (I am not making this up) "Play The Album High Risk Behaviour By The Chats On Youtube Music on Kitchen Speaker". And say it perfectly.

Hmm, that hasn't been my experience. Did you set up everything in the correct room? Also sounds like your voice match sometimes didn't work and you were being treated like a visitor?

Yup, "Kitchen Speaker" is a Chromecast that was next to the Mini itself - the audio quality of the Mini isn't great.

Maybe it is just me, but I really wanted to like it and tried everything to make it useful. The kids just ended up laughing at how stupid the replies from it were. I mean I use Google Assistant on my phone all the time, but only for "set a reminder, set an alarm" etc, basic stuff. I thought the Mini might be a bit better at jut asking it questions and getting answers, but nope. Maybe because it was a Gen 1 Mini, do they suck majorly compared to the newer?

Anyway, I was really excited for the launch and was all keen to buy the two for 1 deal. But I'll spend it on something else.

tieke

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#2515737 1-Jul-2020 16:31

muppet:

...And to get it to play things I had to say things like "Play The Album High Risk Behaviour By The Chats on Kitchen Speaker" for it to play an Album on a Chromecast Audio. Sometimes it would say "You don't have Spotify linked" so I'd have to say (I am not making this up) "Play The Album High Risk Behaviour By The Chats On Youtube Music on Kitchen Speaker".

Just to note that if you want your Google Home to routinely use a chromecast audio, you can pair the mini with one in the settings, so although spoken responses will emanate from the mini, music and radio etc will come the associated audio.

I haven't had the issues that you have, but then again I use Google Music as my music service rather than Spotify, so as you say, it's worth borrowing a device to make sure it works for your use-case.

I've thoroughly tried both Google Homes and Amazon Alexa devices as the voice interface for my Home Assistant setup, and have settled on the Google devices - the voice recognition was better along with various small things - while they would both turn devices on and off, "Hey Google, is the master heater on?" would get a correct response whereas the Alexa didn't know.

gazzerwgtn

52 posts

Master Geek

#2516311 2-Jul-2020 16:53

Finally RTFM, to play a certain radio station. Responds if frequency of station is used; "Play xx.x"

lchiu7

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#2517104 4-Jul-2020 08:51

gazzerwgtn:

Finally RTFM, to play a certain radio station. Responds if frequency of station is used; "Play xx.x"

Well this is the "FM"

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/7071793?hl=en

You don't always need to use the frequency

This is on a Google Home but a Mini should be the same. If I say Hey Google Play KQED I get KQED San Francisco

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