"Okay Google, turn on the garage door"

Question

Obviously, one does not "turn on or off" a door; one opens or closes it.

Any suggestions on how to handle smart home devices using the Actions on Google Smart Home Provider and for which there are no existing device traits that make it natural to interact with the device? For example, there currently are no device traits for basic "door" actions such as open, close, lock, and unlock.

The "Toggles" device trait looks very promising, except that the documentations states "Currently, you must submit name synonyms to us so we can add support for them". Does anyone know if anyone can request toggles, if so, what is the process to request them, and could the existing toggles be documented somewhere so developers can use them if they are a good fit for their smart home devices?

Thanks in advance for any insight.

Answer 1

I'm currently looking into using toggles and modes. I've had some success with Modes and words like "Load" but not with my own synonyms. It would be fantastic if Google actually published available synonyms.

I haven't been able to get a toggles to work at all .. but then I don't know what the "magic words" are.

Answer 2

I don't know what the formal process is, but if you post on the GitHub sample for Smart Home with your suggestion, I'll make sure it gets triaged correctly.

We are aware that many traits are currently not publicly available and are continuing to add more based on prioritization.