Google is beginning to roll out an update for Google Assistant that will speed up your interaction with its smart speakers. The new update will enhance how it responds to you when you ask it to control certain smart home devices.
It will do this by playing a simple sound effect to confirm that it understood you. If you are using one of its speakers with a built-in screen, you will still see a visual confirmation of what it is controlling, but it will no longer repeat the command back to you audibly (ie, “ok, turning off tower fan”).
This update will only affect lights within the same room as the speaker, but will eventually expand to include other devices and scenarios.
You may already know that Amazon’s Alexa/Echo devices already offer this feature, only it is one you can enable via the settings (or disable) and not simply a default feature. So it isn’t new by any means, but one that has taken what feels to be a long time to reach Google products.
The update may not hit your device so quickly, so you may have to wait a little time as it makes its rounds. But it should come in shortly (if not already) and the company will expand on it in the near future. A useful option to have as it’s unnecessary for it to repeat everything you see (just turn the darn light off and move on).
