How to Connect Google Home to Smart Lights

This articles explains how to use Google Home to control Philips Hue connected light bulbs and set them up by room groupings. While this article focuses on Philips Hue smart light bulbs, there are other options available, such as TP-Link Kasa, LIFX, and GE. The process is the generally the same with only minor variations for different manufacturers.

How to Connect Your Light Bulbs to Google Home

This process consists of finding and adding your bulbs to the Google Assistant app and assigning them to a room. Follow these steps:

1. Open the Google Assistant app.

2. In the Explore section, tap the compass icon in the top right of the screen.

3. Tap the three-dots in the top right of the screen

4. Tap Settings.

5. Scroll down to the Services section and tap Home Control.

6. Tap the Plus (+) in the bottom right corner.

7. Scroll down and select Philips Hue.

   Any other smart light bulbs you have will also appear here.

8. Sign in to your Philips Hue account, and all the lights you've set up will now appear in the devices under Home Control.

   

How to Set Up Rooms

Once you’ve connected your lights to Google Home, group them by rooms to control them all at once.

1. Under Home in the Google Assistant app, tap Rooms.

2. You’ll be asked to assign lights to a room.

   

3. Tap the pencil icon next to the light, then select which room it belongs in.

4. Tap Done in the top right corner

5. If everything went as planned, you can now try saying, “Hey Google, turn on [or off] the [living room] light.”

Control Lights With Voice and Text

Once everything is set up, use voice commands to tell Google Home to perform various actions, such as turning lights on or off, dimming or brightening lights, setting a certain brightness level, changing light color (supported bulbs only), and controlling all the lights in a room.

Because Google Assistant is controlling your lights through a Google Home device, you can also control your lights using text. Instead of using the microphone through the Google Assistant app, tap the keyboard and type a command such as, "Turn on the kitchen lights."