Photo credit: Allison H. Smith / Shutterstock.com
Smart home controls mean you’ll never have to manually flick a light switch or get up to adjust the thermometer again. They are ideal in your home, where you know the routines, voice comments and, most importantly, have access to the Home Hub. But they are problematic for house sitters or visiting family and friends who just want the lights on or off. Previously, your choice was to give everyone else you wanted to let control your smart home full access to Google Home, or let them take the risk of letting your voice assistant respond. The problem is that once they had access, they could also cause harm by accidentally deleting smart devices or messing up settings. Last week, Google took the first steps to fix this issue through testing User levels for Google Home. Currently it is only available to some registered users Google public previewGoogle’s beta testing program.
Currently there are only two user levels: Admin and Member. User tiers are popular in software and services, so they’re probably not a new concept to most. Each user level has a hierarchy of permissions. In this case, administrators still have all the permissions that everyone had before. You can add and remove devices, move them from room to room, rename them, etc. “Administrator” is another way of saying “Full Control.” Although I couldn’t find any difference in permissions between “Admin” and “Owner”, I would be surprised if there wasn’t. As a rule, there are some controls that only the owner, that is, the person who installed the device or software, can influence.
Members have limited access. Most of the time they can work the devices. For example, while you can’t add a new robot vacuum, you can operate it. What’s more interesting is that they can also change personal settings such as facial and voice recognition. You can offer your members two additional types of access. Activity gives you the ability to view activity history on a device, and Settings gives you rudimentary access to change a device’s settings and add automations.
Screenshot of permissions, courtesy of Google
Photo credit: Google
I have a smart home and have regular dog or house sitters and this solves a huge problem. As a practice of basic security, I like that I can grant and then revoke access to members, giving them only as much access as they need, for only as long as they need it. I immediately granted my neighbor access since we often go into each other’s houses to water plants, put a package inside, or feed a pet.
Remember that you must be registered for the public preview. Once you’ve done this, you can add a new admin or member by going to Google Home and then opening Settings. Tap the new “Household and Access” menu, tap the “+” in the top right corner, and add the email address of the person you want to invite. You’ll receive the invitation via email and will need to install the Google Home app, but you don’t need to be part of the public preview yourself.
