Google Assistant smart speakers are a handy way to stream music and for people who like to listen to music before they go to sleep, the voice-based commands can be excellent. Now, though, the handy sleep timer function of Google Assistant that turns off music after a set period of time is broken for some users.
Numerous reports from Redditors paint a clear pattern of the sleep timer function simply being broken. The error varies a bit from user to user, but the most common situation is that Google Assistant responds saying “Sorry, I can’t help with that” or some variation of the phrase.
Obviously, that’s really frustrating. I tried this out just this morning on a couple of my Google Assistant speakers and the results were the same on all devices. There are, however, some loopholes to get a sleep timer working.
One example includes routines. If you have, for instance, a bedtime routine that starts a playlist and sets a sleep timer, Google will still do that. Another loophole comes from just rephrasing the request. Apparently, many users have had success asking Google Assistant to set a sleep timer for a specific time, not for a period of time. For example: “Hey Google, set a sleep timer for 11:00 PM” instead of “set a sleep timer for 30 minutes.” “Play music until [insert time]” apparently also works for some.
We’ve not been able to find any official Google acknowledgment of this issue, so it’s unclear if the company is aware or working on a fix.
More on Google Assistant:
- ‘Hey Google’ sensitivity setting now official, gradually rolling out
- Google opens Assistant to more developers of Wi-Fi routers and mesh networks
- 5 Google tools for added productivity when working from home [Video]
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