Actions on Google simulator does not separate screen output devices

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I try to test my action in the Google Actions Simulator. Unfortunately, the simulator does not seems to recognize the difference between the phone surface and the smart speaker surface within the simulator.

I tried to console log the screentest variable. In the logs both the phone & speaker surface show 'true', which clearly is not correct. I also checked to 'conversation' data log. Both phone & speaker output contain SCREEN_OUTPUT. 

app.intent('Default Welcome Intent', (conv) => {
  let screentest = conv.available.surfaces.capabilities.has('actions.capability.SCREEN_OUTPUT')
  console.log(screentest)
  if (screentest === true) {
    conv.add('Text with screen')
  } else if (screentest === false) {
    conv.add('Text without screen')
  } else {
    conv.add('impossible')
  }
})

Expected results: when using the speaker surface inside the simulator, the output of the assistant should be 'Text without Screen'.

Actual results: Both phone & speaker surface inside the simulator generate the answer: 'Text with screen'.

actions-on-google dialogflow-es node.js
1 Answers

The issue is that you're not quite checking for surfaces correctly.

There are two sets of capabilities reported:

  • The capabilities available on the surface the user is currently using. If you're using the actions-on-google library, these are available using conv.surface.capabilties.has()
  • The capabilities available on any surface that the user has connected to their account. These are available using conv.available.surfaces.capabilities.has() if you're using the actions-on-google library.

You're currently using the second one when you should be checking the first one to see what the user is currently using.

You'll want to use the second in case there is something that you want to display to make sure they can handle it before suggesting you switch to it.

user_14056340
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