Google Assistant

Accessory maker iDevices is the latest to announce integration of Google Assistant with its lineup of connected home products, which were previously compatible with competing platforms, Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s HomeKit.

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Google Assistant is a powerful voice assistant platform that I personally use every day on my phone and my Google Home. Among other things, I use Assistant to turn on my music, change the brightness or colors of my LIFX connected lightbulbs, add items to a grocery list, ask random trivia questions, and more, all using just my voice.

It’s been rolling out to Android Nougat devices over the past few months, and to put it into even more users’ hands Google has recently released the Google Assistant SDK. Thanks to this extensive post by Mishaal Rahman on XDA Developers, many enthusiasts, including myself, have gotten it up and running on Mac, Windows, and Linux computers.

Keep reading to find out how you can install it as well…

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Google has quietly added a number of new smart home integrations to Home and Assistant today. Meanwhile, one developer has already found a way to add Assistant to desktops using the recently announced SDK.

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Google I/O is just around the corner and for those who aren’t lucky enough to be going, Google has plenty of options to tune in. It will offer up live streams for major events, and of course, 9to5Google will be there to bring you all the latest news and more from the Shoreline Amphitheatre. Along with those, though, Google also seems to have plans for a Google Home app for I/O 17, and it briefly went live early…

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One of the ways that we’ve seen companies like Amazon grow its smart voice assistants is by letting third-party developers build it into their products. At this year’s CES, it was hard to find a product that didn’t have Amazon Echo functionality. Now, Google has released the Google Assistant SDK so that developers can start implementing it into products. What smart appliances do you want to have Assistant built-in?

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With a wider rollout of Assistant currently underway for Android phones and Wear, Google today announced a developer preview SDK that will allow Assistant to be built into third-party devices.

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VIZIO is no stranger to the world of Google Cast, with the company offering multiple speakers and TVs with the functionality built-in. Now, VIZIO is back at it with a new soundbar that offers up Chromecast built-in for an affordable price, along with Google Assistant compatibility.

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As hinted at earlier this month, Google Home can now recognize multiple users and deliver personalized Assistant results. Neural networks are used to recognize different voices, with the feature rolling out starting today to Google Home users in the U.S.

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Following its announcement earlier this year, Hyundai has today announced that its integration with Google Assistant is available for BlueLink users on recent Hyundai vehicles.

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Update: Google has seemingly blacklisted the exact sound bite from the ad. Home no longer responds to the question, unless you ask it yourself using your own voice.

Most of us are already annoyed enough with this one aspect of Google Home: It’s not smart enough to know that you’re — or at least someone authorized — the one trying to talk to it. That means it sometimes wakes you up demon-possessed in the middle of the night, and it means it sometimes mistakingly hears other background noise — like your TV, for instance — as trying to wake it up with the “OK Google” command. Starting today, this annoyance is going to get a lot worse.

Burger King will begin airing an annoying new ad during primetime television later today that is made to intentionally — yes, I said intentionally — trigger your Google Home or other Assistant-powered device into telling you about a burger…

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Google Home and Google Assistant do a lot of things, but they don’t integrate as well as they should with Google’s dozens of other services. Slowly but surely, though, Google is changing that. Today, the company has announced another new feature for Google Assistant and thus, Google Home — flight price tracking.

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When Google Home launched, it — through Google Assistant — had the ability to take note of your shopping list and drop the information into Google Keep. Yesterday, Google dropped that system in exchange for a new one where and starting today, it’s live for most people…

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Starting on April 10th, Google Assistant’s shopping list will no longer save items to Keep. Following a notice that users have seen in recent days, the list functionality will be moved into Google Home and Express to better integrate with the former device’s ordering and delivery feature.

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One of Samsung’s big software points on the Galaxy S8 is Bixby, the company’s new AI assistant. Samsung is going so all in on this assistant that it added a dedicated button for it on the side. However, since this is Android, some people would prefer to use Google Assistant/Now for this button. Now, thanks to a clever developer, that is possible…

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Today we saw the addition of a dozen new smart home integrations that work with the Google Assistant and Google Home. The new compatible products come from companies such as Logitech, August, TP-Link, and many others. Are you going to be using any of these new integrations?

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Google Home and Google Assistant are ever maturing ecosystems, but they still lack in a major area — home automation. Since launch, Google has only made a couple of major additions to Assistant’s home control compatible products, but today the company is announcing new partnerships that open up the floodgates wide…

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IFTTT integration on phones and Home is likely one of the biggest advantages of using Assistant over Google Now. The latest beta version of the Google app hints that the ability to make commands may soon be coming directly into Assistant. Other new features in 6.16 include payment authentication and a slightly updated visual search interface.

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Speaking to the helpful nature of Google Assistant, asking “What’s my day like” plays a summary of your commute, reminders, and calendar events. Today, users have observed that during the ‘My Day’ feature on both phones and Google Home an ad for a new Disney movie plays.

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On Marshmallow and Nougat devices in the US, Google Assistant is fully rolled out with one notable exception. As implied during the announcement of Assistant’s expansion, it is not coming to tablets. Additionally, Google’s Assistant website has been updated with tips, as well information about which commands work on each platform.

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