i am struggeling a lot with the setup for my garage door in Google Home.
As you can see below i have a KNX device with four channels: UP, DOWN, contact when open, contact when closed. In OH i mapped these to a rollershutter item with rules.
Now, when i give the rollershutter item the metadata „garage“ for Google Home, i can actually controll the garagedoor with the Assistant and say „up“ or „down“. But i cańt see the status in the Home App. I dont even get the buttons for up/down, only voice command works.
If you can control it with your voice, then it’s likely working as expected. Google doesn’t make every device available in the Home app, and I don’t know how they decide that. For example, they also won’t show sensors (temp/humidity) in the app.
If you want to have buttons for your garage door, then the workaround is to tag it as something that does show up in the Home app.
awww… Thats sad. But jea, i see it´s the same with others. I have a temperature sensor which doesńt show the value but the assistant knows it.
Allright then, thank you, guys!
But wait, you can work around it.
For example for the temperature sensor you can make it a thermostat and you get the UI with the temperature and humidity (at least in the android version you also get the humidity).
Maybe for the garage you could make it something like, like a contact sensor, which I think they now show the state, and you’d be able to see whether it’s open or closed.
I think that Google didn’t really intend for the Home app to be a primary interace. Really, it’s there to configure devices/services/routines for Google Assistant. But they’ve caused some confusion by allowing some devices to work fully and limiting others. For example, door locks can be seen in the app, but you can only control them by voice. I would have expected the same for garage doors.
I imagine that it’s a typical Google “design by committee”, which has led to inconsistent implementations for different device types.
I previously said that you can just use a different device type, but really I just wouldn’t bother at all. Use the Google Assistant voice control as it is, and use the openHAB app when you need to press a button on your phone. Then you’re just using the Home app for configuration and not being frustrated when you run into its limitations. I only use the Home app to adjust my Nest devices.
I missed seeing that Google is rolling out a redesigned app, though I should have expected that with Matter launching. I’ll be curious to see how much individual device control improves (or doesn’t).
