Last Updated on 17/08/2019 by TDH Publishing (A)
Google is adding a new feature to its Assistant that will let users assign reminders to other people, so long as that person is part of an opt-in group of trusted fellow Assistant users. The feature is intended principally for families, it will function via the Family Group feature so that a parent can send reminders to their children or a spouse and have that reminder pop up on a mobile phone or a Google Assistant-powered smart display. But it can even work for friends or roommates, the company says.
The process is pretty straightforward. In a demo last week, a Google representative showed me how you can create a reminder with voice or text and set it to show up at a certain time or to pop up once the receiver is at a particular location. You can set reminders to repeat, and you can also check a history of reminders you’ve sent other users or ones you have received and still have to take care of.
All of this works through standard, “Hey Google,” prompts, just like other Assistant features.
Google says the thought isn’t essential to provide you the way to ceaselessly nag your friends or members of the family with ludicrous requests. The company imagines reminders operating as a way to send notes of encouragement, jokes, or casual conversation in an asynchronous or scheduled fashion. For example, you can use the assignable reminder feature to wish somebody luck on a big work presentation at a designated time, if you won’t be able to send a text when you’d like the message to go through.
That said, Google will also allow you to block people; the corporate says obstruction exists principally so kids can’t spam their parents.
There are a couple of requirements to urge the feature working.
You’ll have to create a Family group online at families.google.com to manage both phone and smart display reminders, and that will be necessary for people who don’t live in the same household.
To send a reminder to somebody, Google says that person will need to be in your Google Contacts list. For children under 13 to access assignable reminders, parents will create a privacy-compliant account through the company’s Family Link platform, and then pair that account with and the child’s voice to a Google Home speaker.
Google says the assignable reminders feature will begin rolling out over the following month, starting with select English-speaking regions, including the US, UK, and Australia. The feature will also work at launch in those regions on the Google Nest Hub max, the new Google and Nest co-branded smart display that may be released on September 9th.
