is a senior reviewer with over twenty years of experience. She covers smart home, IoT, and connected tech, and has written previously for Wirecutter, Wired, Dwell, BBC, and US News.
Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
All the smart home news, reviews, and gadgets you need to know about
Google Home users, your long nightmare is over. The platform has finally added support for buttons. The release notes for a February 2 update state that several new starter conditions for automations are now available, including “Switch or button pressed.”
Smart buttons are physical, programmable switches that you can press to trigger automations or control devices in your smart home, such as turning lights on or off, opening and closing shades, running a Good Night scene, or starting a robot vacuum.
A great alternative to voice and app control when you want to control multiple devices, smart buttons are often wireless and generally have several ways to press them: single press, double press, and long press, meaning one button can do multiple things.
Most smart home platforms support using buttons to control connected devices, including Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, Samsung SmartThings, and Home Assistant. With the arrival of Matter, an interoperability standard for connected devices, it’s become easier to control all of your devices with buttons (called a generic switch in the Matter spec).
However, Google Home has frustratingly not had this functionality — until now. The release notes specify that the following function is now supported in the Google Home app (but not by Ask Home or Help Me Create, Google’s Gemini for Home-powered automation features):
“Switch or button is pressed**: e.g. “When double tapping the switch…”, “When holding down the button on a dimmer switch…”, or “When the button is released…” ** Available as a starter only: Single or multi-press / Long press / Long press release
One reason Google may have finally made this move is the recent rollout of Ikea’s new Matter-over-Thread devices. This includes the $6 Bilresa, a wireless button that comes in two form factors: with two buttons or with a scroll-wheel button.
... continue reading