AutoVoice for Google Home adds voice support for Tasker commands

If you own a Google Home and want to expand the number of commands that it can understand, developer Joao Dias has just launched AutoVoice support for the device. It’s supposed to offer you both direct and natural language support for commands that will be recognized by the popular automation app Tasker. If you’re a Tasker user, this will certainly open up Google Home for use in a wider variety of scenarios.

The video below was made by Joao Dias over a month ago, before Google approved AutoVoice support for Google Home. It’s still a nice introduction as to the kinds of voice commands that it offers. For example, you can ask Google Home to call a friend on your Android smartphone, or have the phone check your latest notifications, or where you or a friend are currently located. It will also be able to link to your connected lights so you can turn them on or off with your voice, or turn on your TV to launch your favorite Disney movie.

Obviously, in addition to the Google Home speaker and app, this support does require the installation of the Tasker app on your smartphone, which costs $2.99 from the Google Play Store.

It also requires, at least for now, the beta version of AutoVoice, although the developer plans to add support to the stable version of the app in the near future. You will first have to join his Google+ community to gain access to the beta app.

XDA Developers has a detailed article on how to set up AutoVoice to work with Google Home and Tasker commands. There are two voice command options. One is setting it up so it recognizes exact commands, word for word. The other option lets AutoVoice use natural language commands that can support more flexible conversational strings. Due to the developer’s cost in running servers to support this second option, the Natural Language support also requires signing up for a monthly fee of 99 cents. That’s a pretty small price to pay, but just be aware of that before you set up the app.

This new AutoVoice support for Google Home shows that third-party developers are already wanting to add more features to the connected speaker, and we can expect to see even more of these kinds of efforts in the new year.