GTrusted

After we set up the Philips Hue Starter Kit through Apple HomeKit in this review, and also set it up with Amazon Alexa in this review, we next looked at how to link Hue to Google so we could control it using Google Assistant.

Naturally, we looked at using the Google Home App to link the Philips Hue, which we had used previously for setting up Chromecast on the Google Pixel in this review. We hadn't yet received our Google Home product after taking advantage of a special promotion with LG G6 so hadn't set up the Google Home on the Home App.

After opening up the Google Home App on the Google Pixel, we were surprised to find that without setting up Google Home, there wasn't a way to link the Philips Hue Starter Kit to Google Assistant.

  

The Google Home App couldn't find the Philips Hue Starter Kit even though it was already on the same Wi-Fi network as the Google Pixel.

  

Even in the Discover section of the Google Home App, everything seemed to still be Chromecast rather than Google Home and smart home device oriented.

   

After spending some time trying to use the Home App to sync to the Philips Hue, we eventually came to the conclusion that first you needed to install Google Home but given the large installation of Google Assistant on Android phones, it's odd that Google would make it so difficult to pair smart home devices especially when competitors like Apple and Amazon have made it so easy to connect devices to be controlled by Siri and Alexa.

 

We next looked at using Google Assistant to connect the Philips Hue to Google in this review.