You can adjust the brightness or set an alarm on your Google Home Hub with a voice command. But if you’re trying to be quiet or there’s a lot of background noise, you can also do these things using a hidden Screen Settings menu.
Getting to the screen settings menu is easy. The most difficult part is probably just knowing that it exists. Just swipe up from the bottom of the screen.
Once you do, a small menu appears (much like what you see when swiping from the top for Smart home settings).
You’ll find in order from left to right:
Brightness: This lets you turn the screen brightness up and down. But it also activates and deactivates the Ambient EQ feature. Setting the brightness to a particular level from 1-10 deactivates Ambient EQ; setting it to zero activates Ambient EQ. Volume: This provides another way to turn the volume up and down, though you can also use your voice or the physical buttons on the top back of the hub. This is great for if the buttons stop working. Do Not Disturb: When you enable this, you won’t receive calls or notifications. Once you turn this off again, you’ll see your missed notifications. This setting won’t stop Alarms from sounding, though. Alarms: You can set new alarms from here. Settings Gear: This provides information about your Wi-Fi connection and some legal notices.
Having access to these settings without the need for voice is a good thing, especially if your hub is in a spot where accessing the physical volume buttons is inconvenient. It would just be nice if the introduction video mentioned that the screen settings menu exists.
