I’d like my google home to start playing live feed of a camera when motion or a person is detected. Any hints or pointers on how to accomplish this would be much appreciated. Thanks
From what I can see, this is not a capability in Google Home today.
They have been making some updates recently so it is possible that something like this could be available in the future.
This is a capability in Alexa when using Cam Plus and person detection.
@R.Good is right that this ability isn’t NATIVELY available solely through Google Home or Wyze alone, however, there IS now an easy workaround thanks to some recent Google Home updates this summer! I can give you step-by-step instructions to make this happen exactly as you’re requesting.
For a V3 camera (which you tagged into this thread, so I’m going to answer related to the V3), what you would do to make this work is the following:
In the Wyze app, create a new rule for that V3 Cam, let’s say that camera’s name is “Front V3” :
- Create Rule
- Device and Service Trigger Rule
- If (select Device and Service Trigger) → Select “Front V3” (or name of cam) → Select “Detects a Person” (or Detects Motion)
- Save Trigger
- Add Action → Front V3 (or name of actual cam) → Turn on the camera
- Save Action
- Save Rule
Now, what the above does is it makes Wyze send an “On” Command to the camera through the Wyze server. Your camera is already on, so basically the command doesn’t impact the camera at all because it was already on. So nothing bad happens. But NOW we can have Google Home recognize that an “On” command was sent to that camera, and tell Google to do an action whenever it sees that on command to that camera on the Wyze server. So now lets go setup Google to do what we want it to do!
- Open Google Home
- Select the Automations tab
- Select the “+ Add” Button on the bottom right
- Select Household
- Select “+ Add starter”
- Select “When a device does something”
- Select “Front V3” (or whatever the name of the cam is)
- Select “Turns on or off” then “Turns on” then “Add Starter”
- Select “+ Add Action”
- Select “Try adding your own”
- Type in the command you want it to do, such as “Show Front V3 on Living Room Display” (This is assuming your Google Home Hub is named “Living Room Display”…if not, change “Living Room Display” for whatever your Google Hub Device’s name is).
- Save
Now go test it out. Walk in front of your V3 cam (or have someone else do it), and as soon as it detects a person, it should send the “On Command” which Google will see and then start the stream command to your Hub. Now it’s working just like you asked with a little smart ingenuity.
Now you can do the same for almost any of your other cams by doing the same thing…
Doorbells are the only exception. Wyze doesn’t have an “On command” available for a Video Doorbell Cam, so if you wanted a Doorbell to do it, you would have to tell the doorbell to send a “Turn on” command to a different camera (or other device like a plug) instead. Then it will still work for a Video Doorbell too. I have asked Wyze to please add an on/off command to their Video Doorbells to make this easier for those too. But either way this trick should work for any of your cameras to automatically stream to a Google Hub. Pretty cool stuff. I plan to have a Google Hub dedicated to do this for a couple of my outside cams.
Let me know if you get it working, what you think and if you have any questions. I hope that helps!
So I was able to follow these instructions and it’s working but how do I get the home hub to stop showing the camera?
Just tell Google to do anything else. My Go-to is to tell Google to “Go Home” to get it to stop showing a camera when I am done streaming it. You can give it nearly any other command though. Even asking it what the weather is or anything.
You can set this up to end the camera stream automatically too. Just do all the above again, but tell it to wait a certain amount of time after the camera on command then have it tell Google to “Go Home” or whatever so it will automatically stop streaming after that time period.
Thank you however I guess what I was asking was how to set the home home to automatically stop streaming the camera after X minutes so that the home hub is back to the main menu.
Also, I’m struggling to set the routine of when X camera turns on to flash COLOR (Individual light, Room lights, Group lights) for specific amount of time or # of flashes then return to prior scene. All Philips Hue
I’ve been working on these for well over 12 hrs
So…I think to do timed automations, Google might require that you create a “scripted automation” instead of using the regular automation UI. This might send you down a rabbit hole:
https://developers.home.google.com/codelabs/create-a-scripted-automation#1
Here are the the timebetweenstate options:
https://developers.home.google.com/automations/schema/reference/standard/time_between_state
Google Gemini can help you write a custom script.
Personally, I think the easier way to do a workaround for this would be to get something like a cheap Wyze plug and when the wyze camera detects motion, have it stream the camera to the hub AND turn on the plug. Then in the Wyze app, you set a rule for whenever the Wyze plug turns on, it sets a timer to turn itself back off after 5 mintues or whatever. Then you set a new routing in google for when that Wyze plug turns off (ie: after it’s been on for 5 minutes), to set a new action of “Try adding your own” and set your custom action to be something like broadcasting a message to the Google Hub. like “Tell [device name] stream stopped” and then it will announce that on the display and stop streaming.
Yes!!! Thank you!! It took me several tries but I finally figured it out. I didn’t realize that I couldn’t have my Google Home Hub announce “Ok Google, Go Home” Once I moved one of my Google Home mini’s near my home Hub and had the mini do the announcement it worked! Thank you so very much! I’ve been spent a good 20-30+ hours trying to figure out this one sequence of automations Oh and I used a Kasa TP-Link smart plug vs the Wyze Plug but the instructions were still the same. I very much appreciate the workaround you provided too none of that other stuff makes any sense to me. I’m obviously very new to this, I know I’ll get better, however you also saved me from running out to purchase an Echo hub and echo dot as those were the only clear cut instructions I could find only I don’t any of those aside from my Firestick which then my TV would need to be on. Thank you again for your time, thoughtfulness, and patience!
You’re welcome! I’m glad you got it figured out!
Yeah, a lot of automations are much more difficult with Google Home right now, but Google has recently putting a lot into making it better since August 2023. I expect we’ll see a lot more improvements coming.
Thanks for the followup, it’s always good to hear how things ultimately work out, and I’m glad to get a success story from you. Might just be a workaround right, but at least it works and hopefully Google will keep adding to it to make things easier from now on!
You’re welcome! Also, in your opinion does it matter the generation of the hub or the minis? I’m assuming there are more than one as I saw that the Echos do. I bought mine used a few years ago so they are definitely not newer models. I don’t intend to do any more complex automations above what I just did. I don’t have smart appliances and such, just my cameras, lights, motion sensors, and plugs but even so they would be what I’d consider fairly simple automations. I don’t think I could come up with any more complex as I just completed.
No, I don’t think that matters. I have both new and old ones and they don’t function any differently in the automation aspect since that is all controlled on the backend, not the device. Don’t worry about having older Google hubs/speakers as far as this particular use is concerned. Your old ones will work just as well and have all the same rules, etc as the new ones.
Ok, thank you. I did read that Google Home Hub does not show live feed of Outdoor V1 cams but from my understanding Alexa does?? Is there anything that Google Home Hub can do with the outdoor V1s such as flash lights, give an announcement etc?
Lastly what do you suggest for outdoor Cams if Outdoor V1 or V2 isn’t one of them?
Google Home Hub has been able to show Outdoor v1’s in the past. This is a recent bug that stopped showing them. I am sure it will get fixed eventually. I think it’s just a temporary bug that needs to be resolved, though I don’t know when that will happen.
I have the Wyze Cam Ooutdoor v1, Wyze Cam Ooutdoor v2, and the Wyze Battery Cam Pro. They’ve all been able to stream on my Google Hubs until just recently when the WCO’s stopped working (I’m sure that will get fixed, but don’t know the ETA). The Battery Cam Pros still work for me though.
Ok, perfect, I’ll wait then. I’d rather keep it all as simple as possible if I can. I’ve tried doing tiny cam on my Firestick but I couldn’t figure it out. I may try again though.
@carverofchoice - How can I do this similar set up, I mean to display the camera on Google Home only when someone press the doorbell and go back to home after a while. I didn’t find any trigger action on Wyze app. I’m using v2.5 app. Wize Video Doorbell wired with a chime
Good question. You will do pretty much the same thing as the steps I listed above, but you will use the trigger as "“Is pressed”…it is there, but it is right above the the Cam Plus logo and right below the “Detects motion” trigger.
Then, you will have to set the action to be to “Turn on” another camera or bulb or plug or something because Wyze didn’t add “Turn on” as an action for the doorbell.
With those 2 changes, everything will work the same as the steps I listed above. So like this:
Ok, some reason when I now manually activate the routines they work as they should however when a person is actually detected at my door the routine won’t start and I can’t figure out why. Wyze creates an event triggered as person but that’s not connecting to my Google Home Hub. Any suggestions as to why?
You shouldn’t have to do that. Instead of trying to get one Google Home device to announce something, you can just use a custom action in your routine: + Add action > Try adding your own > Go home. If your Google Home Hub is set as the Play on device in the Configuration section at the bottom of your routine, then this should cause your smart display to reset when that routine runs. That’s what I do for a Video Doorbell v2 workaround, following the same principles @carverofchoice has described (in fact, he initially pointed me in the right direction on this):
If things are already working the way you expect, then maybe it’s not worth mucking about with it. I just thought you might want to be aware of a way to do it that doesn’t involve having one Google Home device audibly talking to another, in case you want to be able to use your Mini in another room or something.
Regarding your most recent question, is that still an issue for you? The way I interpret your description of the problem, it could be broken in a few places.
Thank you! I will try doing this later this week. I can’t remember what my last issue was I know that Wyze is not communicating with Google correctly, meaning my routine for “person at front door” works correctly if started manually however if a person is detected at my front door, Wyze does recognize it however that message is not being received to Google to complete the routine.
You’re welcome! I hope that makes sense and is helpful. If visuals would be better, then I can put together some screenshots to illustrate what I mean.
The issue I was addressing previously was your use of one Google Home device to talk to another, which seemed unnecessary, so I was trying to help you simplify your Google Home Routine situation.
The other issue you mentioned was the thing you just restated, which is that Wyze can detect a person at your door and generate an event basted on that detection but that something isn’t being passed as a trigger to Google Home.
I can’t accurately address the person detection issue, because I don’t have any cameras with the built-in person detection nor any Cam Plus subscriptions; I like the continuous recording to microSD cards and am content with the generic sound and motion detection for now.
If Wyze is generating an event for you, though, then I’m trying to understand what might be happening between Wyze and Google Home. If you’d entertain a few follow-up questions…
- What do you mean when you mention that routines work as expected when you “manually activate” them? Are you tapping in Google Home to run the routine? Are you kicking off a Wyze automation by tapping a Shortcut Rule? Are you pressing the doorbell button?
- What equipment are you trying to control? Right now I’m thinking some kind of Wyze camera, a Google Home Hub, and maybe still a Kasa Smart Plug and Google Home Mini as intermediaries. Is that right?
- How do you currently have your Wyze Rules and Google Home Automations set in an attempt to achieve your goal? What are your start and end points? I think it’s that you want a person detection to initiate streaming to your Hub but then have that automatically stop after a predefined interval, but I want to make sure I understand the problem and the desired outcome.
These are kind of fun problems to noodle through, I think, and it’s cool when the technologies actually talk to each other to help us automate things and give us useful information in a timely fashion. For instance, recently I noticed some irregularities when cleaning the litter boxes, but I didn’t know which cat was leaving what behind and wanted to figure out who might need a trip to the veterinarian, so I did something like this:
- Cam OG pointed at the litter boxes kicks off a Wyze Rule if it detects motion.
- This Rule turns on a Plug for 5 minutes (since that’s the standard cooldown period, but I could’ve set it to something shorter).
- Google Home Routine detects that the Plug turns on and then does three things:
- Initiates a video stream from the Cam OG to the television running Google TV in the room where I’m likely to be at the time. (Because the stream takes several seconds to connect and load, this is first in the sequence.)
- Announces through nearby Google Home smart speakers (including the TV) that someone is in that room.
- Turns the TV off after 5 minutes.
Whatever the problem was, it seemed to spontaneously resolve itself, but setting this all up was an easy way to monitor the boxes and allowed me to narrow down who did what and when.
Hopefully we can help you solve your problem, too!