10 Google Home Tips You Need to Know

Last week, we gave you the 10 tips you need to know for the Amazon Echo. But Amazon isn’t the only company with a connected speaker on the market. Late in 2016, Google threw its hat in the ring with the Google Home, the company’s most accessible Google Assistant device and a direct competitor to the Echo.
Each speaker offers similar functionality, with their own set of quirks and benefits. For the list, we tried to steer clear of the basics, like the fact that you can play music through Spotify. Of course you can, it’s a connected speaker. Instead, we chose to focus on some of the Home’s benefits you may not be aware of yet, or haven’t fully explored.
If you chose Google’s speaker over Amazon’s this holiday season, or perhaps as a Happy 2017 gift to yourself, here at 10 things you need to know:
1. Connect to Chromecast
One of the best ways to enhance the utility of your Google Home is to pair it with a Chromecast, or any Cast-enabled device (like various Vizio TVs). This lets you do a host of cool things, like tell your Home to play Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt through Netflix on your TV. You can also control the volume, pause, play, skip around and more with just your voice. The feature works with YouTube and Google Photos, too, and will hopefully be expanded in the coming months.
2. Customize Your Day
An easy way to stay on top of your agenda is to ask Home “tell me about my day” every morning. The Assistant will then tell you about the weather, your commute to work, whether you have a meeting scheduled and any reminders you may have set, rounding it out with the day’s news report. To get the most out of the feature, though, you should customize it in the Google Home app, so it knows where your work is and what kind of news you want to hear. The more Home knows about you, the more useful it is.
3. Connect to IFTTT
Like with the Echo, Home is more useful thanks to IFTTT integration. Using the third party service opens a wealth of possibilities for your Google Assistant speaker, like the ability to find your phone, or turn on your TV with Logitech’s Harmony Hub (if you don’t have a Chromecast), add a task to Todoist and much more. If you’re a Google Home owner, IFTTT is a must have.