Honeywell Google Home

A revolutionary new way to control the smart home, using just your voice

The challenge

Bring voice control to a premium smart home heating solution through the upcoming Google Home smart speaker.

The outcome

A complex integrated Google Home Action lauded by Google, Honeywell, and users alike.

Upskilling our team

We experimented and worked directly with the development team at Google to uncover best practice for developing with this emerging technology.

Our team upskilled rapidly while simultaneously working to integrate with Microsoft’s Azure platform and multiple APIs. The challenge in getting such a complex integration off the ground and delivered within the Google Home's launch window required a momentous effort by our internal team, one that was rewarded with praise from both Honeywell and Google.

A UK first in voice control

In January 2017 we became the first UK company to launch a smart home action for the Google Home.

With a substantial number of users using the action within the first 24 hours of its release, it was an immediate success for Honeywell and Google. The release was widely covered and praised by media outlets including CNET, Engadget, TechCrunch, Business Insider, and Mashable.

Built with

Being such an innovative project, we had to use our expertise in development and integrations to the fullest in creating the Google Home action.

A groundbreaking new method of human-computer interface, working with voice user interfaces required unique considerations in the UX and planning phases, and allowed us to develop best practice development for voice.

We used Microsoft Azure to develop a complex integration with voice technologies, allowing us to integrate additional client APIs and deliver a robust solution.

Results

By creating a new team to work on voice and methodically testing the limits of the new technology, we created a robust and lauded action which was one of only six smart home actions for the platform at time of launch, sitting alongside global smart home giants including Phillips, Samsung, Belkin, and Google themselves.

Google has lauded our action as being the most complex integration achieved for the Google Home by a third party. We are now working with Honeywell on new future developments around voice.

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