Google Home won’t bake you cookies, but it sure can help with the process.
Depending on your comfort level in the kitchen, cooking and baking can range anywhere from “fun!” to “can we just order pizza instead?” — but if you’re willing to get in there, Google Home can be a useful tool. Here’s a handful of tips to let Google Home be an excellent companion in the kitchen.
Timers
OK Google …
- “set a timer for 10 minutes”
- “how much time left on my timer?”
- “set another timer for 14 minutes”
- “how much time left on my first timer?”
- “how much time left on my second timer?”
When a timer is up, you’ll get an alert sound — you can tap the top of Google Home, or say “OK Google, stop” to silence the timer.
Google Home is obviously cautious about deleting timers, so it may kick back an apologetic error if it can’t identify which of your multiple timers you wanted to delete. Just ask it again more clearly if this happens.
Google Keep shopping list
OK Google …
- “add eggs to my shopping list”
- “what’s on my shopping list?”
Items added to your shopping list on Google Home are synced to a list created in your Google Keep account. You can manage or delete the list in Google Keep on your phone or the web, and it’ll be recreated if you try to fire up a list again on Google Home. Unfortunately right now Google Home doesn’t let you remove items from your shopping list via voice.
Measurements and conversions
OK Google …
- “how many ounces in a cup?”
- “how many cups in a liter?”
- “what’s 17 ounces times 2.5?”
- “how much does an average lemon weigh?”
- “how many calories in an avocado?”
Basically, any type of usual conversion you could type into Google can be handled by Google Home.
Listen to something while you cook
OK Google …
- “listen to top 40 radio”
- “play Led Zeppelin Mothership”
- “listen to the latest Android Central podcast”
- “listen to the news”
- “lower the volume”
- “set volume to 3”
In the Google Home app you can customize which services respond to generic queries such as these, but by default you’ll use services from Google. In terms of asking for news, you can also customize in the Home app what sources it includes.
Even when you’re listening to music, podcasts or news your Home will still be able to respond to “OK Google” in order to check on your timers or perform another action. Once the action is done, it goes back to playing.
Recipe help
Google Home is constantly expanding its personal knowledge base of basic recipes and cooking methods, but third parties can also now put their own integrations in the system to be addressed by you directly. These specialty interactions are tailored specifically to offering you recipes, and are far more helpful than asking Google Home directly for a recipe. Big names like Food Network are here to offer you recipe help, and others like The Bartender give you access to cocktail recommendations.
You can find the full list of how each of these integrations (and new ones as they arrive) work in the Google Home app, but in general you’ll invoke each by first saying “OK Google, talk to Food Network” (for example) to get started. Google Home will then be in the mode of that integration, and can take follow-up questions for you. Food Network, in particular, can display recipes on a TV with a Google Cast support so you don’t have to figure these things out via audio.
And in the end, if you want to just give up … say “OK Google, let me talk to Domino’s” and get on with ordering a pizza for delivery.
Google Home
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