A few months ago a made a tutorial video showing how to control the Harmony Hub via Google Home using IFTTT. Since then, Google has added support for Harmony on the Google Home. Today, I’m going to show you how to set it up and send commands using your voice in a few simple steps.
Link Harmony to Google Home
To link your Harmony account, open the Home app, go into, Menu and then tap Explore. Search for Harmony, open it and then tap on Link. You will see a page from Logitech for you to log in and link your account.
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If you have more than one Harmony Hub, after you log in you will get a page for you to select which Hub you want to link to Google Home. The next page shows all the available activities under that Hub. You have the option to choose the activities to control via the Google Home and also to set up a friendly name. Tap on the arrow at the top right corner of the page and then tap Link Account to finish.
Now that the account is linked, you can control your activities and also send individual commands to the devices connected to your Harmony Hub. For example, you can say, “OK Google, ask Harmony turn on my entertainment center” (Activity) or “OK Google, ask Harmony to turn on the TV” (Individual command).
Simplify commands with Shortcuts.
Because you always have to say ask Harmony after the OK Google key phrase, some commands can get a bit long. Now with Shortcuts, we can make those commands a lot shorter. Here is how you can do it. Go into Menu > More Settings > Shortcuts and tap on the “+” icon to add a new shortcut. Enter the phrase or phrases that you would like to say and, at the bottom type the command that Google Home will execute. You can add a total of 5 phrases that you can use for each command.
Cons of using Harmony when linked to Google Home
One of the disadvantages of this method is that you can only have one Harmony Hub linked to Google Home. If you have multiple hubs, you would have to use IFTTT to be able to control them with your voice. I also had issues where commands weren’t triggering and would give a message saying the activity doesn’t exist.
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