At I/O 2018, Google announced and immediately launched a slew of new Assistant features like six new voices, Multiple Actions, and Custom Routines. Today, the Google Home will no longer require that you repeat a hotword for every command thanks to Continued Conversation.
Continued Conversations is a new Google Home feature that allows users to ask the Google Assistant follow-up questions without having to repeatedly say the “Ok/Hey Google” hotword. Unfortunately, new and old Google Home users alike will need to manually turn Continued Conversations on for the feature to work. Here’s how.
A new survey of smart speaker owners found that only 6% of them are currently using the device to control smart home devices like lighting and heating.
Interestingly, playing music was only the third most common use …
Over the past few years, Google has made great strides in the hardware field, and its two most popular by far have been the Chromecast, and Google Home. These devices are truly nothing short of fantastic, but they aren’t perfect. Some massive bugs have plagued the devices in the past, and now it’s been discovered that a bug could have been revealing your physical location.
Google Assistant’s biggest selling point is just how smart it is, and on smart speakers that especially shows its value. Now, Google Home devices are getting even smarter with improved support for multiple queries.
One of the most impressive aspects of Google Home and Assistant is the realistic speech that the company achieves. Regardless of language, things sound really natural for the most part. Now, Google is enhancing that for Spanish speakers with support for three new dialects.
Tech research firm eMarketer is predicting dramatic growth in the US smart speaker market, anticipating that it will overtake wearables like smart watches at some point this year …
Following the launch of the Google Home Mini in October, the company held pop-up events in various cities across the country. Visiting these “Donut Shops” offered the chance of winning the smart speaker or a pastry. Google is now continuing the marketing blitz with a “Mini Golf course” this summer.
The latest Google app beta continues work on adding features announced at I/O 2018. Version 8.5 details Google Home’s upcoming Continued Conversation feature and Assistant payments. Meanwhile, there is also progress towards new functionality like Read later and Collections.
Smart speakers have exploded in popularity for the past couple of years, and Google has seen a lot of growth, particularly this past year. Now, new market research suggests that Google has outsold Amazon for the first time ever…
One of the coolest but also probably one of the least utilized Google Home features is the ability to place hands-free calls. But at launch, there wasn’t really a way to navigate touch-tone menus that businesses typically have in place.
Smart speakers are quickly becoming a major part of the market, with customers adopting the likes of Assistant and Alexa powered speakers left and right. Now, a new report claims that Google is slowly catching up to Alexa while Apple lands far behind the rest of the pack…
Since launch, Google Home has surprisingly lacked the ability to control content from Play Movies & TV. Today, Assistant smart speakers are finally adding support for Casting content to Chromecast-enabled displays and controlling playback through voice actions.
My favorite feature of Google Home is the ability to cast media to my TV using just my voice. The feature launched with support for Netflix and YouTube, and has grown a fair bit since launch. Now, it appears Google Play Movies is finally adding the functionality…
Movie season is in full swing this month with the arrival of major blockbusters like Avengers: Infinity War taking over theaters around the world. Now, to make it easier to secure seats to your favorite flick, Google has just announced a partnership that makes it possible to order tickets from within Google Assistant…
When it first launched, one of Google Assistant’s biggest weak points was the number of smart home devices and services it could connect to. While there are still a few services we wish it could integrate, Google has done a lot to round out the smart home functionality, now working with 5,000 different devices.
Last year, Google introduced a media control notification that pops up within Android whenever something is being cast to a Chromecast or Google Home. To bring this feature to iOS devices, Google now has a Media Controls widget as part of the Home app.
One of our favorite features of Google Home is the ability to cast video content to your connected TV with just your voice. However, the functionality has been limited to just a few services. Slowly, it’s been expanding, most recently with the arrival of Starz.
Google Assistant may have launched with somewhat limited capabilities, but over the past year or so the company’s “Actions on Google” platform has exploded with thousands of excellent apps and integrations. Now, users can provide feedback on those with reviews.
Podcasts are a great way to keep up with topics you care about, but it can be hard to keep up with a bunch of them. There are dozens of apps out there, but one of the most convenient has been the one built into Google Assistant. Now, that podcast manager is finally getting an upgrade that allows it to remember your progress.
A Google Home user recently asked the Assistant about the current weather and was greeted with a response about checking it with a third-party service. If this has happened to you, don’t worry, this isn’t an ad…
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.
Google’s Chromecast is an incredibly popular product, and for good reason. The ecosystem surrounding the streaming dongles is nothing short of massive. There’s so much you can do with it that it’s likely many users don’t fully understand what their device is capable of. Now, it appears that Google is testing a new feature on Chromecast that gives tips on the backdrop.
Because so much of the Google Home setup process and user experience is through the Home app, it seems logical that the option to factory reset the smart speakers would also be within the application. Oddly enough, it isn’t, and to wipe your devices requires you to press and hold physical buttons on each of the speakers…
