Google Assistant can schedule commands
When you have a smart speaker or voice assistant, such as the Google Assistant, at home, you know that it is useful to use those things to perform certain actions. It always concerns actions that must then be carried out immediately. For example, you cannot say: “Hey Google, turn the heating to 15 degrees in 15 minutes”. That is about to change, since Google has added that option. so now Google Assistant can schedule actions, sometimes days ahead.
That option is now being rolled out to users. At the time of writing, it is not clear whether this is only for the English-speaking Google Assistant or also applies to the Dutch-language version, but we will keep an eye on it. With the new option it is possible to schedule actions. For example, you can ask for lamps to be switched off at a specific time or to have an action performed after a certain time. Two examples: you can ask the voice assistant to turn off the lights at eleven in the evening and you can also say whether the heating can be turned off in 15 minutes.
If the lights are still off and you just want to turn them on for a while, that’s possible too. Then you can use a command like “Hey Google, turn on the lights for five minutes”. The features are not entirely new, as they will be back in January, during CES 2020, were announced. As mentioned, the functionality is now being rolled out, but it may take a while before we are sure that Dutch-speaking users will also have access to it. On the Google website read more about the new possibilities of the Google Assistant. There the examples below are given.
Users can schedule the command to be triggered by specifying a time or duration. For example:
- “Hey Google, turn on the lights in five minutes.”
- “Hey Google, turn on the lights at 7 AM.”
Commands can be scheduled for the current day or another day within the next seven day period. For example, users can say:
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- “Hey Google, turn on my coffee maker at 8 AM tomorrow.”
- “Hey Google, run my sprinkler in a week at 5 PM.”
Note: the function can only be used in combination with smart home products. For example, you cannot ask whether the Google Assistant can play music or activate a certain routine in 15 minutes.
