Google Assistant (voice control) currently disabled
Just wanted to alert anyone who uses the Google Assistant voice-enabled aspect of Astiga...
Currently the "Action" we publish to Google to allow voice control to work is not operational. This is because of the transfer of ownership of Astiga - Google required the action to be re-submitted, which we did.
Unfortuntely the re-submission was denied because of our use of the word "Astiga", which is a bit of an issue when you want to control... "Astiga". So we're having to prove we own the brand and the product.
Hopefully this should be resolved soon, I'll update this thread when it is.
Comments
Hello,
is the support of Google Home going to be operational soon ?
I will love to have the Astiga option in Google Home (as Youtube Music, Spotify etc...)
Is it possible to do that ? works as a music provider.
Best regards,
We're still jumping through administrative hoops. The latest is that because the primary domain of Astiga is "asti.ga" (Astiga split into two words) they wouldn't allow the use of the one word brand! So I've had to provide an authorization letter. Hopefully they'll ok this!
Thanks for your continued interest...
What about being an officiel music provider in Google settings ?
Astiga music by default instead "ask astiga...."
Is is possible to do that ?
Thanks for great job !
That sounds like a wonderful integration but I suspect they only prioritise the larger services. I had a quick look around and couldn't see anywhere where I might be able to register ourselves in this way.
In other news, Google have accepted our use of "Astiga" now so I have resubmitted the English-only action for review. Should hear in the next couple of days...
Hi,
I remember talked with Koen in the past about an integration as a music service in Google, it was thinking about it but not so much time to concretise that.
That can be the best feature of all time !
Because controling Astiga with Google is not easy for an non English speaker.
We have to activate English language in Google account etc.... and the word "Astiga" is very difficult to be recognized !
That"s not working very well.
An integration as a music service will be the best solution and the easiest way to use it.
But I understand that's hard to deal with Google......
Are you able to use English for now?
It doesn't work.
I know it doesn't work - it hasn't completed deployment yet. I'm asking: are you able to use English when it is deployed?
Yes I can use English when it is deployed but this is complicated to set and extremly difficult to use.
French is my primary language, I've to set up English language as secondary language in my google account (only that thing is annyoing),
then I have to say "ok google" with an english accent for Google to treat my request in english, otherwise it just translate the "sound" of the english request in french....
Astiga is a word very hard to be recognized by Google, I have to try minimum 5 times.
It's just hell.
I will not use Astiga with google home until the french language will be set up. I imagine it will never be set up
I just looked for forums to check if the "music service" option (talked with Koen) will come or just abandonned.
Just realized that Astiga has been sold and Google Home desactivated.
Cheers!
Yep - but we're running the service as before, so hopefully the voice activation should be working again soon.
It also sounds like we need a French version... and prononciation of "Astiga" needs some work.
Could you add a request for a French version here: https://community.asti.ga/categories/feature-requests ?
The English app is now deployed and working.
Thanks for the updates.
And the specific command is "Ask Astiga to play" followed by an artist, song, or album name from connected/synched storage in /audio? I don't know how specific the command needs to be. For instance, if I simply say "ask Astiga to play The Who", will the Google device play any titles in my storage tagged as The Who? Can I say "ask Astiga to play Who's Next by The Who" to hear that specific album? Can I say "ask Astiga to play Won't Get Fooled Again by The Who"?
I know this is pretty basic but I couldn't find this documented on the site or here in the forum. This is by far the best feature of Astiga for me - being able to use voice commands to my devices to play my own music library around the house for those times when I'm not using my primary listening system.
For now, it looks like these should be the commands:
Play the <search> <entity>
Play my <search> <entity>
Play the <entity> <search>
Play <search>
Where <search> is what you want to search for (e.g. The Who) and <entity> is one of:
album, artist, genre, playlist, song
Sorry about this... hope this suffices for now...
This is very, very helpful. Thanks. Voice control for my own music library is fantastic.
This is strange, it worked a few hours ago, I played 2 tracks as a test and now it's just impossible to use it again.
It just doesn't know Astiga now.
What's going on?!
I was trying it earlier and I found it quite difficult to say "Astiga" myself. The words is spelt as "asti ga" in the setup, which slightly changes how it's captured from "astiga". This might need more refinement...
I can not use it at the moment.
Google understands my command, it correctly writes Astiga (I use it on a Google Hub, with a screen, I can see my request on the screen) but it just doesn't know what is the Astiga service. ... ?!
I tried to unlink and link again, still doesn't work. 😥
🤔
@John Is it working for you at the moment?
Yes; when I first tried commands yesterday, Google prompted me to connect Astiga. Then commands worked. I've been experimenting with asking for tracks and albums to see how well the search works. Sometimes it's easy, other times no luck, for instance asking for "sergeant pepper's lonely hearts club band" doesn't work, but of course the tag is "Sgt. Pepper's...". And yes, it appears that it's necessary to carefully pronounce the first "a" in Astiga as the "a" sound in "hat" or "apple".
Great tips, thanks!
Hello, I've been trying to get my nest hub max to connect to Astiga but no joy - it either can't understand my accent or doesn't recognise the name. Eg I say "Ask Astiga" and the hub prints "Ask a speaker" or "Ask aspiga" or "Ask us Tigger" and many other variants!
Have you any further hints for making the connection please?
The different pronunciations I have tried are:
as-teega
as-tigga
astigga
Could you describe phonetically how you pronounce it?
Sorry, this is really hard to debug. It doesn't help that we can only register one way of pronouncing it.
Not sure if it can help...
I use Google assistan in Spanish. I call the app using the command " OK Google, abre la app Astiga (as ti ga)" (Translation: Ok Google, open Astiga app)
Google assistan opens the app with a confirmartion voice message. And then I say: "OK Google, dar a play" (Translation: Ok Google, push play)
The big problem for me is using Google assistant to search for an album. If an album and a song has the same name, something very usual... The assistan always plays the song, not the album.
But anyway, I don´t use that option. I usually use the assistan on the car with Android Auto, just to open the app, and pushing play by voice.
Hope it can help...
Back in 2020 Koen mentioned it may be released for the larger public, but that's the last (and only) I heard from it. I'd still really love this one tho. https://community.asti.ga/discussion/comment/240#Comment_240
It's been a while, but last I tried Astiga had to be pronounced with a British accent, an American "a" would not work. I always figured Astiga is likely said with a "British a" (or more so, a Dutch one) as Koen was Dutch anyways. But I guess Koen never specified the pronunciation.
However, Google often gets confused between the letter a and e when speaking with an American accent on unusual (and sometimes common) words. It's a Google issue really, as I for example have to say "bathroom" with a British accent or it keeps getting confused with bedroom somehow. So I'm not sure if this is really @gravelld having to streamline more or just Google assistant being Google assistant.
Similarly, Google tends to struggle with using two languages unless you speak accentlessly. My Google home is only in English because otherwise, my English is suddenly random incomprehensible Dutch despite working perfectly with English only (so it's not like Google can't understand my English). Since the English one has more functionality I prefer that over Dutch (and I speak it daily anyways). However, point is that the issue @Chaama mentions about Google thinking she's speaking French is also more of a Google issue.
I finally got it to work - I had to use the Google Assistant app on my phone as follows... Open the Assistant app, press the keyboard button, type in 'talk to astiga'. This allowed me to connect astiga to Google, and now when I say 'hey Google ask astiga to play...' it works!
Oh right - so the keyboard approach "initialised" it and from then on it would recognise your voice?
Yes, that's it :)
The commands available don't include things like playing 'recently added' albums but it's good to have this ability to play my collection on the speaker!
One curious note - the device announces every track of an album before it plays it. Is there a way of stopping that?
I've not played with this, but try under Google Assistant settings -> Notifications and try playing with "Help with tasks" and "Tips & tricks"...
I'm updating this thread because it's recent and it's entirely relevant...
I've just received notice from Google that the action has been taken down again because "the Action is unable to perform any task as stated in the description".
I'm following up on this...
This has been fixed, but now Google are not accepting re-submission because they don't like the way the pronunciation of Astiga is registered as "Asteega". They think Astiga should be pronounced with a soft "i" like in "tin".
Currently in discussions about this 🙄
If anyone is able to record themselves saying "Astiga" with a long "ee" sound (like the "i" in "pizza") it might be useful because I might need to submit it as evidence!
On the upside, it might actually improve the recognition of the pronunciation also, so some good might come of this.