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Google Home speakers are beginning to appear as ‘Recently used devices’ in account settings

Google Assistant speakers — and upcoming smart displays — have wide access to your personal information from calendar appointments to shopping lists and can even make payments. Given this increased functionality, Google is now listing Home in the device section of My Account settings.

Several years ago, Google redesigned the My Account page to provide quick access to settings and tools, like sign-in, security, and personal info. One aspect is a “Device activity” section that notes what phone, tablet, smartwatch, or computer last accessed your account.

Given that Personal results on Google Home can already surface your calendar and flights, as well as make purchases, it’s important that users have tight control over these already public smart speakers.

This oversight makes even more sense in light of upcoming Google Pay integration that allows you to send/request money with your voice, and how we spotted email as a new piece of information that can be surfaced by Personal results.

At the moment, the integration does not appear to be fully live, with users only having access to basic details like “last synced” and the physical location of the speaker down to the city-level. All other device entries in “Recently used devices” feature the ability to immediately remove account access, which forces users to re-enter credentials.

Additionally, the listing uses a generic laptop icon that does not reflect the device type, while not accurately reflecting the number of Home speakers that a user has. In our testing, only one “Google Home” entry appears regardless of quantity logged into an account or even the type of device you have.

Meanwhile, this Google Home entry is only appearing for a handful of our staff. It does not seem to be fully rolled out for all users. Hopefully, this is not a bug and that Google continues listing Assistant devices that have access to your account and data.


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Avatar for Abner Li Abner Li

Editor-in-chief. Interested in the minutiae of Google and Alphabet. Tips/talk: abner@9to5g.com