Google Home and Nanoleaf Aurora: Setup and Voice Commands

Google Assistant at smartenlight.com

Let’s introduce our Google Home to Nanoleaf Aurora. In this post we will set up our little Google Home assistant to talk to Captain Muks. We will look into the basic setup and additional tricks to get the most out of our setup.

If you have not configured your Nanoleaf Aurora with the Nanoleaf app yet, please see our updated post here: Nanoleaf Aurora How To: Setup and Configuration to the Muks!

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes

How to prepare Nanoleaf Aurora for Google Home?

Delete / Rename your Aurora Scenes

Screenshot of Nanoleaf App Rename scenes
Nanoleaf App – Swipe left on your scenes to rename or delete them

Chances are, that you’ve downloaded many community scenes and your Nanoleaf app dashboard is full of scenes you might never use and the rest looks like creative names you will never memorize. Since every scene in your dashboard will be synchronized to Google Home let’s spring clean our scenes list:

  • In the Nanoleaf app dashboard, swipe left on the scene you don’t need any more and tap the delete button.
  • Alternatively, swipe left on the scene, tap the three dots, and rename it. To avoid ambiguous scene names, we prefix the scenes with the device name, e.g. “Muks Relax”, this helps, especially with our scenes from other smart lights.

Create your Nanoleaf Cloud Account

To support Google and Alexa (as well as IFTTT), Nanoleaf has created the Nanoleaf Cloud. You’ll need to get an account there, if you have not already:

  • Under “… More”, bottom right in your Nanoleaf app,
  • tap on “Settings” and on top of the screen, you see the “Nanoleaf Cloud” settings.
  • Tap “username” and register.

Note, the synchronization of your local configuration to the Nanoleaf cloud should happen automatically, check the “last time” date and time. To manually synchronize, click the “Sync” button.

Nanoleaf in the Google Home App

Screenshot of Google Home app Link Nanoleaf
Google Home App – Link your Nanoleaf Cloud account
  1. In your Google Home app tap on the “+” Add button
  2. Tap on “Set up device” and “Have something already set up”
  3. Search for the “Nanoleaf” Service and tap on it
  4. You will be guided to log in to your Nanoleaf cloud account, which we’ve created previously.
  5. Tap on “Allow” to let Google control your Nanoleaf Aurora.

Let Google Home discover your Smart Home Devices

  1. Give Google some time to discover new devices, when you see your Nanoleaf Aurora, tap on it and “next”.
  2. You will be guided to add your Nanoleaf Aurora to a room:
    • Rooms are useful to group multiple smart home devices. You will be able  control all the lights in one room with only one voice command.
    • If you add your Google Home device to one room, Google Home becomes room-aware and you can use short commands like “Lights on/off” to control all lights in this room.

Basic Voice Commands

This is the moment we’ve waited for. Let’s tell Google Home to control our Nanoleaf Aurora:

  • OK Google, turn on/off <Aurora-name>
  • OK Google, set <Aurora-name> to x percent
  • OK Google, dim/brighten <Aurora-name> (by x percent)
  • OK Google, turn/set <Aurora-name> (to) <color>. Check out this link with hexa color names for an amazing list of color names Google Home should recognize (colors like “school bus yellow” …).
  • OK Google, activate <Aurora scene>
  • OK Google, set <Aurora-name> to 2000 Kelvins Note, the range is between 2000 and 6500 K, and we can apply this to individual lights or rooms.

If we added our Nanoleaf Aurora to the same room a Google Home device is mapped to, we can use these snappy voice commands:

  • Hey Google, lights (on) /off
  • Hey Google, dim/brighten the lights
  • Hey Google, set the lights (to) <color>

Pro-Tip: There are many command alternatives you can use with Google Assistant and smart lighting. Pick the ones which work best for you from the overview in this post: Google Assistant and Philips Hue: Setup, Review and Voice Commands.

How to Synchronize Multiple Scenes (and play some Music)

There’s basically only one way to activate your Nanoleaf Aurora together with other scenes you might have: Google Home Routines. If you are new to Google Routines, you will enjoy this overview — Google Routines: How to Automate your Life with Google Assistant! Here’s Google, explaining and creating some routines (rewind for the full cartoon):

Since Routines are a very powerful tool, let’s start with a basic example.

Routine(s) to set the Scene in one Room

Screenshot of Google Home App Office Dashboard
Google Home App – Office Dashboard, lets create a Routine for these devices

Let’s assume you have set up your Aurora in your office and you’d like to concentrate, which means:

  • setting your Nanoleaf Aurora and other lights to the right scene,
  • turning the airwasher on for some clean air,
  • setting the temperature to not too cosy and
  • playing some background music which, supports reading this post.

Here we go:

  1. In the Google Home app, tap on “Routines”,
  2. Scroll down and tap “Manage Routines”
  3. Tap the blue “+” button in the bottom right corner to create a new routine
  4. Tap on “Add commands (required)”,
  5. Choose your voice command (here, “Office concentrate”)
  6. Tap “Add Action”,
    • tap “popular actions”,
    • check “Adjust scenes” and then
    • tap on its settings icon.
    • Select the scenes from the scenes list (here it’s “Office concentrate” and “Muks concentrate”).
    • Tap back on the top left (please only once, otherwise your work is gone!) and
    • Don’t forget to click on “Add” top right!
  7. Now, that we have seen how counterintuitive our Google Home app is, I’ll let you practice with the remaining actions:
    • add an action from popular actions to control your smart plugs (here the airwasher)
    • add an action from popular actions to control your smart thermostat
  8. Under “And then play …” select Music and tap the configuration icon
    • Type in your favorite music for concentration (here “Deep Focus”)
    • Tap back on the top left (please only once, otherwise your work is gone!) and
  9. Please don’t forget to then tap the “Save” on the top right!
Screenshot of Google Home App Routine Office Concentrate
Google Home App – Routine: Office Concentrate – Automation Magic

Can’t believe we are done, but yes! Try it:

  • “Hey Google, Office concentrate” 

Amazing, isn’t it. Our Nanoleaf Aurora takes part in many actions performed with only one voice command. If you’re not tired yet, you can create your routines for e.g. “reading”, “relaxing”, etc. Check out our post Natural Smart Lighting: Feeling Better With Smart Light for some inspiration.

Pro-Tip: the Nanoleaf Rhythm scenes are great for creating Google Home Routines with music! Don’t forget to check our top post: Hey Google, Play Some Music! All The Music Voice Commands!

Routine(s) to set the Scene in Multiple “Rooms”

Let’s assume, we have a dining area where our Nanoleaf Aurora shines, an entertainment area, an open kitchen area, etc., all of them part of our living room. Let’s further assume, we have these areas configured as rooms in the Google Home app, because we want to control them independently. We want to relax at the couch, while someone is reading at the dining table and someone else is concentrating in the kitchen area to get the recipe right.

Easy, we can control existing scenes with the command

  • OK Google, activate <scene> in <room>

All we have to do now, is to create Routines to combine our dining area scenes with our Nanoleaf Aurora scenes. We can create a Routine like in the example above and call it “Dining area read”. We just need to select our Nanoleaf Aurora scenes and our other scenes.

But, how can we set the scene for our Nanoleaf Aurora and all the lights (and areas) in our living room with only one voice command? Something, like a “living room relax” and all our areas including our Aurora set the scene?

Screenshot of Google Home App Routine Living room relax
Google Home App – Routine: Living Room Relax

We just need to create more Routines:

  1. In the Google Home app, tap on “Routines”,
  2. Scroll down and tap “Manage Routines”
  3. Tap the blue “+” button in the bottom right corner to create a new routine
  4. Tap on “Add commands (required)”,
  5. Choose your voice command (here, “Living room relax”)
  6. Tap “Add Action”,
    • tap “popular actions”,
    • check “Adjust scenes” and then
    • tap on the settings icon next to it.
    • Select the scenes from the scenes list (here it’s “Couch relax”, “Table relax”, “Kitchen relax”, “Muks relax”, etc.).
    • Tap back on the top left (please only once, otherwise your work is gone!) and
    • Don’t forget to tap “Add” on the top right!
  7. Please don’t forget to Save on the top right!

Pro-Tip: No, you can’t call routines from routines yet, we’ve tried it.

Another Pro-Tip: You can use this technique to group downstairs/upstairs lights, etc.

How to Schedule Routines

One of the nice features of Google Home is that we can schedule all the routines which we have already created. Just go into your “Manage Routines” section, tap on a routine and select weekday and time.

You could schedule the “Living Room Relax” scene at 6:00 pm and the “Living Room Nightlight” scene around 9 pm every weekday.

Note, to dim/brighten your Nanoleaf Aurora gradually over a period from 1 second to up to 1 hour, check out the “Schedules” feature in your Nanoleaf app. Unfortunately neither Google nor Nanoleaf provide Sunrise/Sunset schedules yet.

Pro-Tip: To achieve natural light transitions over time, find the (native) app with the most features to automate your different smart lights. We’ve distributed schedules over 4 apps to get the most out of our different smart home lights.

Updating your Nanoleaf Aurora Scenes

Google Home automatically recognizes any changes in your Nanoleaf scenes and synchronizes them through the Nanoleaf Cloud to your Google Home settings.

If this does not work for you, make first sure you have synchronized your changes manually to the Nanoleaf Cloud (Sync button)! Then say:

  • Ok Google, sync Nanoleaf

If this does not work, try

  • Ok Google, sync Devices

And if you are still struggling, try to unlink and re-link the Nanoleaf Service:

  • In your Google Home app tap on the “+” Add button
  • Tap on “Set up device” and “Have something already set up”
  • Tap on the Nanoleaf service
  • Tap unlink
  • and repeat the linking process described above.

Multiple Languages for Nanoleaf Aurora

Screenshot of Google Assistant - Supported Languages 1
Google Assistant – Supported Languages Page 1/2

Google Home supports setting a second Google Assistant language. If you do not see the option (under “Google Home / Settings / More Settings / Assistant / Languages” or “Google Assistant / Settings / Assistant / Languages”, you could try setting your smart phone region and language to English US and re-download the Google Home / Google Assistant apps from the US stores.

Screenshot of Google Assistant - Supported Languages 2
Google Assistant – Supported Languages page 2/2

This has the advantage, that you can access all US features/services and actions, plus set a second language in different varieties, like currently:

Danish, Dutch, English (Australia, Canada, UK, Indonesia, Ireland, India, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand), French (France and Canada), German (Germany and Austria), Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Spain, Mexico, Peru, USA) and Swedish.

So yes, you can talk to your Nanoleaf Aurora in 2 languages, just pick your pair!

Note, the Google Nest Hub supports currently English (U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, India, Singapore), Dutch, Danish, French, German, Indian, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish (Spain), Swedish and Norwegian.

Conclusion

Google Home and Nanoleaf Aurora are a great fit!

Google does not like us to group smart home devices to overlapping groups and forces us with this approach to create Routines for everything we might miss. That’s no surprise, we’ve seen this before with other smart home devices. The Google Home app has a lot of room for improvement. And we miss sensor support and sunrise/sunset schedules.

The automatic scene synchronization is a nice surprise. Google Home routines are indeed very powerful, as we can combine many actions into only one voice command. Bi-lingual voice control for our Nanoleaf Aurora is simply amazing.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post! If you have questions or would like to share your experience with Nanoleaf Aurora and Google Home, please leave your comment below.

Happy Hue with Google!

P.S. You can find more Google Home posts here: Google Assistant.

For the Nanoleaf Rhythm Module, please see Nanoleaf Aurora and the Rhythm Module: Visualize Your Music. And, for the Nanoleaf Remote: Nanoleaf Remote Setup – The Shape of the Universe?

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3 thoughts on “Google Home and Nanoleaf Aurora: Setup and Voice Commands”

  1. Does the voice commands works or function even without internet connection, you know just connecting it to a wifi router without internet connection.

    Reply
  2. Updated: The Google Nest Hub supports English (U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, India, Singapore), Dutch, Danish, French, German, Indian, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish (Spain), Swedish and Norwegian.

    Reply

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