How to schedule announcements on google assistant speakers and displays

Joe Fedewa is a Staff Writer at How-To Geek. He has been covering consumer technology for over a decade and previously worked as a News Editor at XDA Developers. Joe loves all things technology and is also an avid DIYer at heart. He has written thousands of articles, hundreds of tutorials, and dozens of reviews. Read more.

Google Assistant has a lot of tools that can help you organize your day. You can create an interactive checklist for your morning or nighttime routine. It’s great for kids and works with smart displays and speakers.

The checklists are part of the “Family Bell” features. A regular “Family Bell” is a single announcement at a certain time. Checklists take it to the next level by guiding you through things on your list. On a smart display, you get a nice user interface, but it also works with audio-only speakers.

Open the “Google Home” app on your iPhone, iPad, or Android device, and tap your “Profile” icon in the top-right corner.

Select “Assistant Settings” from the menu.

You’ll now be looking at a long list of things you can do with the Google Assistant. Scroll down and select “Family Bell.”

Scroll down to the “Family Bell Step-by-Step” cards. Select “Add” for either “Good Morning!” or “It’s Almost Bedtime!” You can set these to go off at any time, but the theme will be morning or night.

You can enter your own announcement message and select the time and days you want it to go off.

Next, select the smart displays and speakers where you want the checklist to be broadcasted, then tap “Confirm.”

Lastly, create the checklist items you want to include. Use the handles to re-order the list and the trash can icon to delete items. Tap “Add a New Step” to create more.

Once the list is looking good, tap “Create New Bell.”

When the time comes for the Family Bell checklist to go off, you’ll be greeted with the announcement message. If you’re using a smart display, you can tap off items as you complete them. You can also use your voice to tell Google when you’ve completed something.

That’s all there is to it. This is a fun way to make sure you get everything done. It’s especially useful for kids, and it’s easy enough to use that they can do it themselves. Don’t be afraid to let Google Assistant help you through your day.

Joe Fedewa is a Staff Writer at How-To Geek. He has been covering consumer technology for over a decade and previously worked as a News Editor at XDA Developers. Joe loves all things technology and is also an avid DIYer at heart. He has written thousands of articles, hundreds of tutorials, and dozens of reviews. Read more.

If you have a number of Google Home or Nest speakers and Smart Displays scattered around your house, why not put them to use as a broadcasting system? That’s exactly what you can do with the Google Assistant.

Google Assistant’s broadcasting feature works like a modern intercom. You can broadcast a message to your kid’s room to tell them dinner is ready, or send a message to the whole house when you’re away. It’s a very useful feature.

Before we get into the process of broadcasting messages, let’s cover some basics. You can broadcast a message from the Google Assistant on your smartphone or tablet, or a Google Nest or Home device that’s a part of your smart home.

Broadcasts can be sent to every Google Nest or Home device in your house, or directed to specific rooms and devices. It’s also possible to reply to a broadcasted message.

Launch the Google Assistant

To use a Google Home or Nest smart speaker or Smart Display, you simply need to say “Hey, Google” and one of the commands below. With an iPhone, iPad, or Android device, you need to launch Google Assistant.

On Android, there are a number of different ways to launch the Google Assistant. The first is to say “OK, Google” or “Hey, Google.” Newer devices can launch the Assistant with a swipe from the bottom left or right corner.

Launching Google Assistant on Android.

On iPhone and iPad, you need to install the Google Assistant app and launch it from the home screen. After you open the app, say “OK, Google” or tap the “Microphone” icon and Assistant will begin listening.

Open Google Assistant on iPhone.

Broadcast a Message

To broadcast a message to every Google Nest or Home device in your house, use one of the following commands:

• “Broadcast [message].”
• “Announce [message].”

To specify where the message will be broadcast, use these commands:

• “Broadcast to [room name] [message].”
• “Broadcast to [device name] [message].”

The difference between these two phrases is the first one will broadcast on every device in the room, whereas the latter will broadcast on only the mentioned device. You can find the name of each device and room using the Google Home app on iPhone, iPad, or Android.

Respond to a Broadcast

Responding to a broadcast works in a similar way as sending one. After the Google Assistant is done reciting the message from a speaker or Smart Display, say “Hey, Google” and the following commands:

• “Reply [message].”
• “Send a reply” (Google will follow-up and ask what the message is).

Your reply will only be sent to the original broadcasting device. If the original message was sent from a phone, they will get a notification with your response. If the original message came from a Google Home or Nest speaker or Smart Display, your response will be played out loud on the device.

Response notification on broadcasting phone.

Joe Fedewa is a Staff Writer at How-To Geek. He has been covering consumer technology for over a decade and previously worked as a News Editor at XDA Developers. Joe loves all things technology and is also an avid DIYer at heart. He has written thousands of articles, hundreds of tutorials, and dozens of reviews. Read more.

Having a few Google Home and Nest smart speakers and displays around your house can be great for home automation. With “Family Bell,” you can have the Google Assistant play scheduled announcements at designated times. We’ll show you how to set it up.

The Family Bell feature is great for keeping your household on schedule. You could use it to remind your kids its bedtime every night at 9 p.m. Or maybe you work from home and always forget to eat lunch, so create an announcement for 12:30 p.m. on Monday through Friday to remind you.

One requirement for the “Family Bell” feature is a Nest/Google Home speaker or smart display. The announcements can only be made through these devices and not your smartphone or tablet.

Open the “Google Home” app on your iPhone, iPad, or Android device, and tap your “Profile” icon in the top-right corner.

Select “Assistant Settings” from the menu.

You’ll now be looking at a long list of things you can do with the Google Assistant. Scroll down and select “Family Bell.”

Next, tap the “Add a Bell” button.

First, enter a “Bell Announcement.” This is the message that the Google Assistant will recite.

Now, we’ll choose the time and the days of the week for the announcement to be made.

You can choose where the announcement will play. Tap “Plays On [Device Name],” and choose from your connected devices.

Lastly, make sure it’s “Enabled,” then tap the “Create New Bell” button.

You’ll be brought back to the Family Bell Overview menu, which is where you can enable or disable any of your announcements.

That’s all there is to it! At the designated time, you will hear a few chimes and then the Google Assistant will recite the announcement. You will get a notification on your mobile device when the announcement has been made.

Now you can broadcast to a single Google/Nest device or room, instead of the entire home

For almost three years now, owners of Google and Nest smart speakers and displays have been able to broadcast an audio message to every device with the Google Assistant in their home.

This is useful when you need to tell the entire family something at once, like dinner is ready, or if anyone needs anything from the store.

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But sometimes you want to broadcast to a single room, or even just one speaker or display, instead of the whole home. This feature had been missing, but now finally Google has finally introduced it.

Now that families are spending much more time at home together than normal, with parents working in their home office and children being home-schooled due to the coronavirus pandemic, broadcasting to individual rooms (and not disturbing everyone else) is more useful than ever.

First, a quick reminder on how to broadcast a message to every Assistant device in your home at once:

Speaking to one of your Google Assistant-equipped speakers or displays (or the Assistant on your phone), say: “Hey Google, broadcast dinner’s ready”. Every Assistant-equipped device in the home will then chime, followed by the Assistant saying: “Dinner’s ready”.

For everyday messages like that, the Assistant understands what you’ve said and says it in its own voice. If you broadcast a more obscure message, like “I’m leaving the office now, will be home in 30 minutes”, the Assistant will chime, then play a recording of your message.

How to broadcast to a single device or room

Messages can now be broadcast to a single Google Home or Nest speaker Google

You will need to know the name of the device you want to broadcast to, such as “kitchen display” or “office speaker”. The names of your devices can be seen in the Google Home app, and they can be changed if you so wish.

Similarly, if broadcasting to a whole room (perhaps you have two Nest Mini speakers in the lounge) you’ll need to know the name of the room, as shown in the Google Home app.

Once you know that, just say: “Hey Google, broadcast to [room/device name] [message].”

For example: “Hey Google, broadcast to the living room, it’s time to start homework,” or say: “Hey Google, broadcast to kitchen display, is dinner ready yet?”

Whoever hears the broadcast can reply to the message by saying: “Hey Google, reply [message]” and that will be sent to the speaker or display used to send the original broadcast.

We said earlier how the Google Assistant can broadcast some messages using its own voice, instead of playing a recording of what you said. Here is a list of the messages the Assistant can say for itself:

• Wake up everyone
• It’s time to wake up
• Breakfast is ready
• Breakfast is served
• It’s time for breakfast
• Lunch is ready
• It’s lunch time
• Dinner is served
• Dinner is ready
• It’s dinner time
• It’s time to leave
• It’s time to leave the house
• I’m home
• I’m here
• I’m on the way
• I’ll be home soon
• I’ll be back soon
• It’s movie time
• The movie is about to start
• The show is about to start
• It’s time to watch TV
• It’s time for bed
• We should go to bed

Google’s digital voice assistant adds six new actions, which the company introduced at CES 2020 that you’ll be able to use on your Google Home or phone.

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At CES last week, Google used its tremendous booth (complete with slides and a kooky tour) to announce new Google Assistant actions that you’ll be able to use on your phone and Google Home or Nest Home device. Google’s ambition is clear — to become the one platform to rule your home, using Google Assistant to tie your hardware to Google’s immense database of search and services.

Google’s new features and an emphasis on privacy are part of a calculated move in the heated battle against Amazon to own the smart home market. Google Assistant has 500 million monthly users and is on over a billion devices. Amazon’s Alexa assistant is installed on “hundreds of millions” of devices , Amazon said this week, more than doubling its presence in a year.

Assistant’s new tools include scheduling actions, digital sticky notes and a privacy tool to make your Google Home or other Google Assistant-enabled smart device disregard what you said. Here are the six new features Google announced that will arrive later this year, and how you’ll use them.

1. Link Google devices with Assistant in the app

Google is trying to make it easier for you to link your account to a smart home device that isn’t made by Google, for example the C smart light bulbs or Ecobee smart thermostat . That’s a boon for setting up new devices, which can take more leg work to get discovered and linked in Home.

Now, when you set up a new device with the manufacturer’s app, Google will push a notification to your phone that you can select to automatically add your information.

2. Schedule actions for later

If you have any devices in your home that are compatible with Google Assistant — say a microwave, TV or smart plug — you can use a new feature called Scheduled Actions to control it.

You’ll be able to say things like:

• Hey, Google, start the coffee-maker at 6 a.m.
• Hey, Google, turn off the TV at 9 p.m.
• Hey, Google, turn on the robot vacuum cleaner at 3 p.m.

The feature will come out in 2020 to more than 20 devices.

The Nest Hub Max and other smart displays will work with Google’s digital sticky notes.

3. Leave Household Notes, like digital Post-Its

Called Household Notes, this next feature reenvisions Post-It Notes for a smart display. The idea is for anyone nearby to see the note, even if they’re not voice-matched to the display.

You’ll simply say, “OK, Google, leave a note. I already fed the cat” to create the sticky note. The new tool will roll out over the next few months.

4. Create a speed dial of Household Contacts

Another shared feature for the entire household is a speed dial called Household Contacts. You’ll need a smart display to use it.

The family member with the master account (the one who sets up the device) can make a master list of phone numbers — say, the babysitter, Grandma or your favorite restaurant for take-out. That way, anyone can place a call without having to look up the phone number first.

The list of contacts can be added during device setup, or from the Google Assistant app on your phone. To use it, you’ll say, “Hey, Google, call Grandma” or by tapping the contact name from the contact list.

See also

• CNET’s 20 favorite products of CES 2020
• All the cool new gadgets at CES 2020
• Full coverage of CES 2020

Little by little, Google is making smart speakers smarter.

5. Have Google Assistant read long stories aloud

Google Assistant can already read to you, for example, audiobooks and emails. Now, Google’s expanding that to read longer articles aloud .

You’ll simply say, “Hey, Google, read this page,” for Assistant to begin. The page also scrolls with you so you don’t lose your place. You can translate it into 42 languages. It’ll be available in the next couple of months.

6. Use these two new privacy controls

There are two new privacy-related tools to use with Google Assistant. If you think you accidentally triggered Google Assistant, you can say “Hey, Google, that wasn’t for you” to make it disregard anything you said.

Google likes to use Google Assistant to communicate what it’s doing in terms of privacy. You’ll also be able to ask, “Hey, Google, are you saving my audio data?” Google Assistant will tell you about privacy controls and open the settings screen on your phone app to review your preferences.

Family Broadcast lets users reach people anywhere (even outside of a home Wi-Fi network), while Family Bell reminders play scheduled announcements on speakers and smart displays.

Google this week unveiled a slew of family-friendly Assistant features, including an expanded Broadcast function, new bell reminders, and fresh bedtime stories.

The changes—marketed to busy parents ahead of Mother’s Day—start with an amplified version of “one of our most popular Assistant features,” according to Lilian Rincon, senior director of product management.

Family Broadcast

Rather than walking from room to room to gather everyone for dinner (or, in my household, simply shouting up the stairs), Broadcast makes it easy to communicate between in-home smart speakers. But what if you’re at the grocery store or running late from work?

Family Broadcast lets users reach people anywhere (even outside of a home Wi-Fi network), and they can respond from any device, including an Assistant-supported smartphone.

“When I get home from my Sunday morning run, I can broadcast to my newly created Google Family Group, ‘Hey Google, tell my family, how about lunch at noon?’ across all our smart speakers and displays,” Rincon wrote in a blog announcement (Opens in a new window) . “The message will even reach my husband on his iPhone (or Android device) while he’s on his way home, letting him reply by voice or tapping the ‘reply’ button, ‘Hey Google, reply sounds good, stopping by Grandma’s house. See you in 15 minutes.'”

Family Bell

Keep everyone on schedule with Family Bell reminders: scheduled announcements that play on speakers and smart displays. Introduced in August, the audio feature rings throughout the day to announce, for example, when it’s time to stand up and stretch, eat lunch, water the plants, or even go to bed.

Google this week launched two new reminders, added the option to have Family Bells ring across multiple home devices at once, and teased the upcoming ability to say “stop” to end the bell; no need to use “Hey Google” again, just like with alarms and timers. Initially available in English, the function will soon expand to Dutch, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Reminders that work like a class bell and daily facts about animals

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The new Family Bell feature on Google Assistant smart displays and speakers. Image: Google

Google is expanding the capabilities of its Assistant on smart displays and speakers today to make it easier for families that are homeschooling their children during the pandemic.

Leading the way is the new Family Bell feature, an alarm-like reminder that can be broadcast from a Nest Home smart display or speaker at a set time. Google is pitching the Family Bell as a way for families to announce when it’s time to start schooling or get ready for bed. A parent can program a Family Bell through the Assistant app on a phone, set when it will go off and repeat on specific days, and choose which smart display or smart speaker it will chime from. Family Bell alerts can also be programmed through Hey Google voice commands, but any management after that has to be done through the Assistant app.

When the Family Bell alert goes off, the Nest device will emit a chime and recite whatever is programmed in the app. You can program multiple Family Bells for the same time, but you can only have each Bell broadcast from a single smart display or speaker.

The new school’s in session feature. GIF: Google

Another new feature aimed around homeschooling kids is the ability to have a Nest smart display or speaker announce when it’s time to start the school day and show education-themed graphics. You can say “Hey Google, school’s in session” or “Start the school day,” and the special visuals will play. It’s also possible to program smart home devices, such as lights, to react when the command is issued. Lilian Rincon, senior director of product management for Google Assistant, likens this to an old-school class bell — but at home.

Google is also expanding the Broadcast feature, which allows you to blast a custom alert to all of the Nest speakers in your home. Now, you can specify which speakers or smart displays a Broadcast goes to, and that should prevent disturbing a sleeping child from the announcement.

Finally, Nest smart displays and speakers are getting an animal of the day feature, which will provide facts, sounds, and a creative task, such as drawing, for a different animal each day. You can hear about the animal of the day by saying “Hey Google, tell me about the animal of the day” to a Nest smart display or speaker.

All of these new features are rolling out to Nest Hub smart displays and Nest Home speakers starting today.

Google is adding a bunch of other new features, too

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For the past few years, Google and Amazon have tussled to get the most attention for their respective digital assistants at CES. But while Amazon mainly focuses on partner announcements, Google aims for consumer attention with new Google Assistant features (plus a gigantic, ostentatious building outside the convention center).

This year is no different, and today Google has announced all of the capabilities it’s adding to the Assistant. It’s a grab bag of things — ranging from making privacy options more accessible to improved device setup to making voice calls easier to place — and what will matter to you will depend entirely on what kind of stuff you do with your smart speaker or Android phone. And as usual with Google, most of these features are not going to be available right away, but instead later in the year.

For me, the headline feature is scheduling actions. Instead of going through the hassle of setting up a full routine, you will be able to ask the Assistant to do something for you at some point in the future as a one-off. So, for example, you could say “turn on the lights at 2PM tomorrow.”

But the most important features are the slightly improved privacy options. If you haven’t checked Google’s web-based privacy dashboard lately, you can ask it “are you saving my audio data” and it’ll tell you what’s up and send a link to your privacy settings to your phone. Given how difficult it is to find anything inside Google’s settings on the Assistant and Home apps, it’s probably the easiest way to do that now.

If you suspect Google accidentally activated the speaker to listen to you, you can say “Hey Google, that wasn’t for you,” and it will delete the last utterance from your history.

Google is trying to make it easier to set up new smart home devices, too — something Amazon has also been doing with Alexa for some time. Google’s new feature will have the Assistant pop up a notification once you’re done with setup in the manufacturer’s app for a new gadget. Tap it, and it’ll connect it with your Google Assistant and ensure it’s working properly.

Google also says it’s adding support for a bunch of new smart device categories into the Google Home app, including AC units, coffee makers, vacuums, and smart bathtubs. There are supposedly 20 new kinds of devices, and I will be going to see if I can take a bath at the Google CES Compound later today.

If you have a Google smart speaker, you can set up “Speed dials,” which are exactly what they sound like. It’s useful because it’s always a crapshoot what will happen when you ask the Assistant to call somebody by their first name — or if somebody else in your house does the same. Chances are you know more than one John, so if your kid wants to call uncle John, the speaker would ask which John. So: small problem solved. Speed dials will also have a visual interface on smart displays.

Lastly, Google will let you save virtual sticky notes on smart displays for family members. They should work whether or not the person making them has registered their voice as a user.

Like I said, it’s a grab bag. All of these seem like nice features, but they also are a reminder that every digital assistant and smart speaker shares a common problem that we haven’t figured out yet: how to remember what it can and can’t do. Some of these new features — like the smart home setup — handle their discoverability on their own by popping up a notification. But for most of the rest, these companies will have to either market the feature or convince you to read a software update notice.

For Google, at least here at CES, there’s no shortage of marketing. Whether that will eventually turn into consumer awareness is another question.

Joe Fedewa is a Staff Writer at How-To Geek. He has been covering consumer technology for over a decade and previously worked as a News Editor at XDA Developers. Joe loves all things technology and is also an avid DIYer at heart. He has written thousands of articles, hundreds of tutorials, and dozens of reviews. Read more.

Google Assistant-enabled smart speakers work best when they can provide personal information. However, you may not want everyone who enters your house to have access to your account. That’s where “Guest Mode” comes in. We’ll show you how it works.

What Is Google Assistant Guest Mode?

The idea behind “Guest Mode” is to turn your Nest Hub, Nest Mini, Google Home, or Google Assistant smart speaker into a public device. It turns off access to any personal results and doesn’t save queries to your account. It’s kind of like “Incognito Mode” in a web browser.

When you set up a device such as a Google Assistant smart speaker, you can enable “personal results.” This means that when you ask for certain things, the Assistant will gather information from your Google Calendar, shopping lists, Gmail, and other accounts associated with you.

The “Voice Match” feature is intended to prevent others from accessing these personal results, but it’s not perfect. The other issue is that any command given to the smart speaker that isn’t personal will still be recorded to your account. “Guest Mode” solves these problems.

How to Turn on Guest Mode

Guest Mode is only supported on Google Assistant-enabled smart speakers and smart displays. It is not available on the Google Assistant found on Android phones, tablets, iPhones, or iPads.

To turn on Guest Mode, simply say “Hey Google, turn on guest mode.” You will hear a chime, and Guest Mode will start.

How to Turn off Guest Mode

As you may have guessed, turning off Guest Mode works in the same way.

Simply say “Hey Google, turn off guest mode.” You will hear a chime, and Guest Mode will end.

It should be noted that while Guest Mode is similar to “Incognito Mode” in a web browser, it’s not as robust. The speaker is still connected to your Google account and any other integrations you have set up. That includes music apps and smart home devices. Also, anyone can use the command to turn off Guest Mode.

Guest Mode is intended to be used when you have guests over at your house with you. It shouldn’t be used as a security feature when you’re away from home. With those limitations in mind, it’s still a pretty handy feature.

While reminders are nothing new for Google Assistant, the Family Bell feature focuses on keeping your family on track. Instead of just a standard reminder, an alarm sounds, much like a bell. This will grab anyone’s attention, ensuring they check to see what they need to do.

The idea stems from parents and kids trying to manage their time more effectively while staying at home during the pandemic. As you may expect, part of the purpose is to ensure kids keep a structured schedule when attending classes at home. Of course, you can set all types of loud, nagging reminders to create better daily routines.

How It Works

Google rolled out Family Bell as a way to help families get ready for the new school year. In keeping with a school theme, Family Bells go off like school bells to let kids and adults know when it’s time to do something. Some of the presets include things like recess, math, start of school day, read, study, and eat breakfast.

While there are some presets to help you get started quickly, you can customize bells to your needs. They don’t have to be school-related. Use them to remind you of daily tasks, such as taking medications, video conferencing when working remotely, and reminding you to take lunch versus working all day.

You can set the bells to go off daily or just on certain days. These are recurring reminders to help your family stay on track with daily and weekly routines. The best part is you can send these bells to specific devices on all devices at once. Not only will a bell sound, but you’ll hear the purpose of the bell, such as “time to study” or “time for lunch.”

If you have multiple kids with different activities throughout the day, sending the bells to the individual kids’ devices works well. All you need is a Google Assistant device.

If you have a Google Assistant-enabled smart display, you can say “Hey Google, start the school day” to see a school-themed visual along with the common sounds you’d hear at a busy school.

Google is currently rolling the feature out in English only in the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and India. If you don’t have it just yet, keep checking for updates to your Google Home or Google Assistant app as it should be available soon.

Setting Up Bell Announcements

There are two ways to set up Family Bell announcements. Either say “Hey Google, create a Family Bell” or use the Google Home app. For the purpose of this tutorial, I’ll walk you through using the app.

Open the Google Home app and tap your profile image at the top right, then tap “Assistant Settings.”

Tap the Assistant tab.

Choose “Family Bell.”

Tap the blue “Add a bell” button or add one of the preexisting bells at the bottom of the screen.

Simply scroll to see more pre-made bells. You can customize the schedule to your needs.

When you customize or add a new Family Bell, you’ll need to give the bell a name, choose a time, which days it will sound, and which speaker(s) it’s sent to.

All your existing bells show up in the Family Bell area of the Assistant Settings.

Managing Family Bell Announcements

Want to temporarily disable a bell, edit a bell, or delete one? In the Family Bell area of your Google Home app, tap the down arrow next to a bell to edit the details. Or, turn it on/off by tapping on the top right of the bell to toggle it on and off.

You can create as many of these as you need for your family. If you’re trying to make home feel more like school, these bells may help to remind parents and kids when to change subjects, take breaks, and have study time. This also works well for daily routine tasks and if you’re working from home.

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For all of Assistant’s progress, there’s one big honkin’ opportunity for improvement that remains irritatingly unaddressed.

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Goodness gracious, Google Assistant sure is growing fast.

Google kicked off the new year (and the ever-musty CES industry shout-fest) with a slew of new Assistant announcements, including an option to schedule specific actions to occur at certain times along with a new digital sticky note feature for Smart Displays and a useful-sounding system for making your Android phone read any article out loud simply by uttering a voice command. (In typical Google fashion, all of these features are vaguely set to roll out “soon.”)

Assistant’s making its way to even more devices, too — a diverse slate of displays, TVs, speakers, and even, for some reason, showers. (Hey, Google: Pass the soap, would ya?) And as of just a couple months ago, it’s available, at last, on Chromebooks everywhere as well.

Despite all that expansion, though, one basic-seeming ability remains annoyingly out of reach — and particularly with Assistant showing up in more and more places, its absence represents one of the biggest challenges to actually using Assistant in any real-world sense. It’s something I keep hoping Google will have the decency to bestow upon us: the option to create a customizable launch phrase — something beyond just “OK, Google” or “Hey, Google” — that activates Assistant and gets it listening.

I mean, think about it: At this point, most of us have multiple Assistant-enabled devices around us and always listening for our commands. Whether it’s a phone and a Chromebook, an Assistant-enabled speaker or display of some sort, or any combination of those and other assorted always-listening gadgets, we’re surrounded by technology that’s standing by and waiting for our word — those two specific words, to be precise — at all hours of the day.

And I don’t know about you, but I sure find that trying to navigate that mess of alleged artificial intelligence is a constant struggle and source of frustration.

Maybe I’m sitting in my office and aiming to get my phone’s attention, for instance, but when I call out “Hey, Google,” the Smart Display in the room responds. Or maybe I’m at home and want the screen in our kitchen to do something for me, but then my phone — or the speaker several feet away in our living room — answers instead. (There are also those lovely occasions when multiple devices respond at the same time, which technically isn’t supposed to happen but is always a hoot and a half when it does.)

The reality is that with Assistant now existing on so many different gadgets — and with all of those gizmos listening for and responding to the same frickin’ launch phrase — there’s just no way to control or even know which gadget will respond at any given moment. And the built-in system of Assistant somehow magically sensing which device should answer never seems to work consistently well.

Guess what, though? The fix is simple. Give us the power to set our own custom launch phrases, and let us set different phrases for different devices. That way, you could summon your phone anytime you want, specifically and consistently, by saying “Hey, phone” (or “G’day, me gouda-scented matey!” — whatever floats your boat, really). Your kitchen Assistant gadget could respond to “Hey, kitchen” or “Kitchen, listen!” Your living room speaker could answer to “Hey, living room” or maybe even just “Yo, speaker.”

And beyond your own personal appliances, this would address the pesky problem of having someone with a voice that sounds vaguely similar to yours — or even having a random voice within a commercial or podcast that’s playing in your vicinity — activating your phone with their “Hey, Google” utterance. As I’m sure you’ve also observed, that happens far too frequently, sometimes by impish design but more often by irksome happenstance. These are all personal devices, and they all serve different purposes. Why shouldn’t we be able to create our own personal commands for each of them?

The most vexing part about this option’s ongoing absence is the fact that we know it is absolutely, positively possible — and easily attainable. Remember the Moto X from way back in 2013? It was the first phone to feature a touchless control system, originally with the command “OK, Google Now.” Well, it was none other than Google itself that owned Motorola at that point and was fully responsible for the device’s development.

And guess what? By the phone’s second generation, sure enough, you could customize its voice control launch phrase and make your device respond to almost anything imaginable (except for “Tee hee, fickle pickle tickle,” which for some reason never seemed to work).

It was both useful and a supremely sensible level of control to have. And that was at a time when most of us owned somewhere between zero and one devices that were standing by to answer our spoken commands. Now, at the start of 2020, with Assistant in place all around us and spreading to more places every second, the practical need is even more apparent. And yet that option is nowhere to be found.

Hey, Google: Throw us a bone here, would ya? I get that a customizable launch phrase would take away the brand-reinforcement benefit of having everyone in the world shouting out “Hey, Google” all day, but c’mon: It’d be an enormous usability improvement for your entire Google ecosystem — and at the end of the day, you want that ecosystem to be as inviting and as pleasant to use as possible, don’t you? It’d also be a nice marketable improvement over the limited control certain, ahem, other virtual assistant systems offer. And “Hey, Google” could still be a fine default choice for anyone who doesn’t want to change things up.

For better and sometimes for worse, voice control has slowly but surely crept its way into every nook and cranny of our lives, and that’s created a cluttered reality that’s increasingly complex to handle. As we look forward to the future of this technology, it’s time to also glance back to the past — and to rediscover a simple-seeming feature whose comeback could bring a massively meaningful and majorly appreciated upgrade to our lives.

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Contributing Editor JR Raphael serves up tasty morsels about the human side of technology. Hungry for more? Join him on Twitter or sign up for his weekly newsletter to get fresh tips and insight in your inbox every Friday.

Home automation itself has never been a goal of Home Assistant. Instead, it’s a tool that allows us to have technology improve our life, and that of the people around us. I wrote about this 3,5 years ago, and it’s been our guiding principle in building out Home Assistant.

Today we’re introducing Home Assistant Cast to help with this. With Home Assistant Cast, people in your house can have quick access to see the state of your house and its residents, and quickly adjust the most important settings. This is achieved by running on Chromecast powered screens that you already have throughout your house: your Google Nest Hubs and TVs.

You can launch Home Assistant Cast by going to the Home Assistant Cast launcher website. It works with any version of Home Assistant released in the last year. Home Assistant Cast can show any Lovelace view, including support for custom cards and themes. Got no Lovelace configuration? Don’t worry, we’ll generate a view and show that instead.

For a demo, also check out the Home Assistant Cast launcher. If you have any questions, make sure to check the Frequently Asked Questions.

How it works

You need to authorize Home Assistant Cast to access your Home Assistant instance. Once it’s authorized, you can start Home Assistant Cast on your Chromecast device. Next, your Chromecast device will set up a direct connection to your Home Assistant instance and give you the option to pick a view to display.

Home Assistant Cast can:

• Render Lovelace views, including custom cards.
• Stream real-time data to make sure that the UI always shows the latest state of your house.
• Navigate between views using navigate actions inside an entities card or using weblinks.
• Instantly update the casted Lovelace UI when you update your Lovelace configuration.

About touch

We have been able to get touch controls working on the Google Nest Hub and other Google Assistant devices with a screen. The available configuration options to indicate that we’re a touch-optimized app did not work. We were still able to achieve touch controls by manipulating code that is injected into the Home Assistant Cast website when the Chromecast runs our receiver application.

There is no guarantee that touch controls will keep working, it might be blocked. It might stop this week, next month, next year, or it keeps working forever.

I hope that by releasing it with touch controls enabled, we can show Google that this is something that people want, and are willing to invest in for just this reason.

To make sure everyone sees it, I encourage people to share photos and videos of Home Assistant Cast in action on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social media with the hashtag #homeassistantcast . Let’s share the love!

Coming soon and future plans

On August 7, Home Assistant 0.97 will be released. This release will allow launching Home Assistant Cast from the Home Assistant frontend. You can do this by including a new cast row that can be placed inside an entities card.

This is the first release of Home Assistant Cast, and so we focused on the minimum that was worthy of a release. We still have some more things planned:

• Allow starting Home Assistant Cast from Home Assistant itself (not a browser), as part of an automation or script. This is live now since Home Assistant 0.99.
• Use Home Assistant Cast as a text-to-speech target (inspired by lovelace-browser-commander by @thomasloven).

Back at Google I/O, Google announced two new features for Google Assistant: custom routines and schedules — both focusing on automating things you do regularly, but in different ways.

The first lets you trigger multiple commands with a single custom phrase — like saying “Hey Google, I’m awake” to unsilence your phone, turn on the lights and read the news. Schedules, meanwhile, could trigger a series of commands at a specific time on specific days, without you needing to say a thing.

While custom routines launched almost immediately after I/O, scheduling has been curiously absent. It’s starting to roll out today.

As first noticed by DroidLife, it looks like scheduling has started rolling out to users by way of the Google Home app.

To make a schedule:

• Open the Google Home app
• Go to Settings>Routines
• Create a new routine with the + button
• Scroll to the “Set a time and day” option to schedule things ahead of time

If you don’t see the “time and day” option yet, check back in a day or two. Google is rolling it out over the next few days (generally done in case there’s some bug it missed), so it might pop up without much fanfare.

Want your bedroom lights to turn on every morning at 7 am on workdays? You can do that. Want that song from the Six Flags commercials to play every day at noon to get you over the hump and/or drive your roommates up a wall? Sure! Want to double-check the door lock, dim the downstairs lights and make sure your entertainment center is off at 2 am? If you’ve got all the smart home hardware required, it should be able to handle it.

While a lot of things you might use Google Assistant for can already be scheduled through their respective third-party apps (most smart lights, for example, have apps with built-in scheduling options), this moves to bring everything under one roof while letting you fire off more complicated sequences all at once. And if something breaks? You’ll know where to look.

Your Google Home or Google Nest device will work a lot better with just a few tweaks to the settings.

The Google Assistant app that powers your Google Nest smart speaker can be really useful — you can use it to create a to-do list , set reminders for yourself or even make a phone call . But there are privacy issues to be aware of with any smart device, including Google’s, not to mention everyday annoyances that make the experience unwieldy or frustrating. Luckily, a lot of Google Assistant’s worst features are things you can turn off with a simple toggle.

Whether you’re worried about privacy or just want a more natural conversation experience, here are five things we recommend turning off to get a simpler and safer Google Assistant experience.

1. Voice recording settings

Google announced changes to its voice recording privacy settings in 2020. Unless you opt in, Google won’t save your audio recordings or share them with its human analyzers to improve Google’s algorithms. However, if you opted in or have previously saved audio recordings, you can choose how long Google keeps them or manually delete them.

To adjust these settings, open your Home app, tap on your profile picture in the top right, followed by Assistant Settings. There, you’ll land on the You tab. Select Your Data in the Assistant and scroll down to Audio Recordings. Tap to see options for saving, reviewing and deleting recordings. Here’s more information on deleting Google voice recordings .

2. Continued conversation

Continued Conversation helps Google listen for follow-up questions without you having to say “Hey, Google” a second time. While this is handy, the extra listening can sometimes be less than seamless, especially when you don’t have a follow-up question or you’re just asking a question of someone else in the room. Luckily, you can turn off this feature.

To turn off Continued Conversation in the Home app, tap on your profile picture in the top right, followed by Assistant Settings. In the next screen, navigate to the Assistant tab. There you’ll see several options including Continued Conversation. You’ll be able to toggle off Continued Conversation and see which speakers it will affect.

3. ‘Hey Google’ sensitivity

If you feel like you’re always waking up your smart speakers accidentally, the “Hey Google” sensitivity may be too high. You can adjust how well your Google Assistant responds to its wake word if it isn’t hearing you well enough or if it mistakes other words for its wake word.

To adjust the sensitivity in the Home app, tap on your profile picture in the top right, followed by Assistant Settings. In the next screen, navigate to the Assistant tab and you’ll see several options including “Hey Google” sensitivity. There you’ll be able to adjust the sensitivity for each individual speaker in your home. Select the speaker you’d like to adjust and choose from five settings from “least sensitive” to “most sensitive.”

You’ll see a solid green light beside the camera whenever the Nest Hub Max is uploading images or video to Google’s servers.

Juan Garzon / CNET

4. Camera settings

If you use a Google-enabled smart display like the Nest Hub Max , Lenovo Smart Display or JBL Link View , you may want to keep your camera disabled when you’re not making video calls. Each display does this a little differently. While JBL and Lenovo offer physical shutter options, you don’t get a built-in shutter with Google’s in-house display, the Nest Hub Max.

Instead, there’s a toggle button on the back of the display to disable the camera and microphone. An indicator light beside the camera lens shows the current status. This is a tough one, because you’ll need to remember to switch it on and off each time you use a camera feature. Still, having the option to make sure your camera is off when it needs to be is important.

5. Activity controls

Like voice recordings, Google saves information on the sites and apps you use with your Google account . If you’re concerned about privacy, adjusting these settings offers some peace of mind.

In the Home app, tap on your profile picture in the top right, followed by Assistant Settings. Tap the three dots on the top right of your screen and select Google activity controls. There, you’ll see a page with options for controlling which information Google gathers from your online and mobile app activity . You also can turn on auto-delete and choose how often your data is removed.

Whether you adjust one or all of these settings, personalizing your voice assistant can make the entire experience much more pleasant. If you live in a large household, features like Voice Match and Household Contacts can help everyone live in harmony with the same devices. More of an Amazon Echo fan? Here are 6 Alexa features you should turn off today , too, and 9 things your Amazon Echo can do that Google Home can’t . Plus, Every Google Assistant command for your Nest speaker or display .

The search giant wants you to use its services all around the house.

Richard Nieva is a senior reporter for CNET News, focusing on Google and Yahoo. He previously worked for PandoDaily and Fortune Magazine, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, on CNNMoney.com and on CJR.org.

This story is part of CES , where CNET covers the latest news on the most incredible tech coming soon.

Google wants to own the smart home market. So on Tuesday it unveiled a handful of features and partnerships aimed at getting people to use its Google Assistant digital helper software more around the house.

The search giant made the announcement in Las Vegas at CES , the world’s biggest tech conference, where it’s made a big blitz in the last few years to try to give the Assistant a leg up against Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri.

Here’s what Google announced:

Scheduled actions: One new feature lets people schedule certain tasks. For example, if you have an internet-connected washer or dryer, you’ll be able to schedule a load of laundry. If you have a smart coffee maker, you can time it to brew a pot at 6 a.m.

Leave a note: Google says it wants people to use their smart displays like a digital chalkboard. It unveiled a simple feature that lets people leave notes on the screen for others in the house to see. The feature is like a less formal version of Timed Reminders, a tool the company announced in August that lets you send scheduled messages to family and friends.

You can leave notes for family members on Google smart displays.

Household contacts: You can upload contacts from your phone that you’re comfortable letting anyone in the house call, from grandma to the vet. Usually Google only lets people call their contacts from a smart display if the Assistant recognizes the caller’s voice. But with the shared contacts feature, anyone in the house can make the call.

New Home app features: Google has also revamped its Home app to make it easier to link accounts for third-party smart home devices. So now if you set up a device using that company’s app, you’ll get a push notification from the Home app that lets you automatically input your information. The company also is adding the ability to control more than 20 different types of devices through the Assistant. That includes things like an August Smart Lock , Telus Wi-Fi router or Meross smart garage door opener.

Partnerships: Last year at CES, the company announced a new interpreter mode that could translate conversations in real time, a feature that leans into Google’s formidable machine learning and engineering chops. At the time, the feature was only available on smart displays through a pilot program at concierge desks at hotels. Earlier this month, Google brought the feature to smartphones. Now it’s expanding the smart display pilot to include airports and work with nongovernment organizations. New partners include John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City and Mercy Corps, a humanitarian organization based in Portland. American Airlines also announced it will test the use of interpreter mode at its Admirals Club lounge at Los Angeles International Airport.

Last year at CES, Google introduced interpreter mode for the Assistant.

Google also said it’s expanding its partnerships with TV makers. The search giant is bringing the Assistant to Samsung’s new voice-enabled smart TVs later this year. It’s also working with the Chinese companies Hisense and TCL to build more far-field microphones into their TVs, so they can work like other Google Assistant smart speakers.

For Google, it’s crucial to introduce new tricks that separate the Assistant from Alexa, which became a household name after Alexa released it in 2014. (Google followed suit with the Assistant two years later.)

See also

• CNET’s 20 favorite products of CES 2020
• All the cool new gadgets at CES 2020
• Full coverage of CES 2020

The smart home is a particularly important battleground. At an event in October at which Google unveiled its new Pixel phones, executives talked up the idea of “ambient computing.” It’s a bit of corporate jargon, but it refers to an always-on, always-connected vision of the future that puts Google’s services all around you, as if the company’s iconic search engine had been extended to the physical world.

“Throughout your home, technology works as a single system,” Rick Osterloh, Google’s hardware chief, said at the event, “instead of a bunch of devices doing their own thing.”

Google wants to be at the center of that system. And it starts with the Assistant.

Your Action can push notifications to users whenever relevant, such as sending a reminder when the due date for a task is near.

This guide describes how to set up push notifications for your Action.

Supported surfaces

Push notifications are available on Android and iOS devices (iOS devices must have the Assistant app installed to receive push notifications). They are not currently supported on voice-activated speakers, smart displays, or other surfaces.

Prerequisites

Your project must contain at least one global intent, which is invoked when the user taps a push notification received from Assistant.

Get started

The following sections describe how to set up push notifications in your Action.

Create an intent for triggering

The intent you create in this section triggers the notifications flow. To create this intent, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Actions console and click Develop in the top menu.
2. Click Intents in the left menu to expand the section.
3. Click the add_circle_outline at the bottom of the list and enter a name for the new intent.
4. Press Enter/Return to create the new intent.

Add training phrases for triggering the notifications flow. Some examples are:

• Notify me
• Send notifications
• Subscribe to notifications

Click Save.

Transition to system intent

To set up the transition to the Notifications system scene, follow these steps:

1. Under Scenes in the left menu, click the scene you want to add the notifications subscription flow to.
2. Under the User intent handling section of the scene, click + to add a new intent handler.
3. Under Intent, select the intent you created in the previous section.

Under Transition, select the Notifications system scene.

Click Save.

Configure system scene

To configures the Notifications system scene, follow these steps:

1. Under Scenes in the left menu, select the new Notifications system scene.
2. Under the Configure intent section, click Select intent.

Under the Select intent section, select the intent you want to be matched when a user taps a push notification.

For Customize opt-in prompt, enter a prompt that is displayed to users when they’re asked to subscribe to push notifications. The prompt is in the form of “Is it ok if I send push notifications for $prompt”.

Click Save.

Configure opt-in

To configure opting in to push notifications, follow these steps:

1. Under Scenes, select the Notifications system scene.
2. Under Conditions, select If the user says “yes”.
3. Enable Call your webhook and provide an event handler name, such as subscribe_to_notifications .

Enable Send prompts and provide a simple prompt to let the user know they’ll be sent notifications:

Under Transition, select End conversation to end the conversation after a user subscribes to notifications.

Configure opt-out

To configure opting out of push notifications, follow these steps:

Under Conditions, select If the user says “no”.

Enable Send prompts and provide a simple prompt to let the user know they won’t be sent notifications:

Under Transition, select End conversation to end the conversation after a user opts out of notifications.

Configure webhook

To configure your webhook, follow these steps:

In your webhook, add an intent handler for storing the updatesUserId :

Send notifications

Push notifications are sent to users using the Actions API. To use this API, you need to activate the API in your Google Cloud project and set up and download a JSON service account key.

You can then use the Google OAuth2 client library to exchange the service account key for an access token and use the token to authenticate your requests to the Actions API.

Get a service account key

1. Go to the Google API console and select your project from the Select a project dropdown.
2. Click Enable to enable the Actions API for your project.
3. Go to the Google Cloud console credentials page and select your project from the Select a project dropdown.
4. Click Create credentials > Service account.
5. Enter a service account name and click Create.
6. From the Select a role dropdown, select Project > Owner.
7. Click Continue.
8. Click Create key to download the service account JSON file.

Exchange the key for an access token and send a notification

To send push notifications through the Actions API, you need to exchange the service account key for an access token. We recommend using a Google API client library for this. In the series of code snippets that follow, we use the Google API Node.js client library.

Install the Google API client library and request:

npm install googleapis request –save

Use the following code to get an access token from the service account key and send a push notification:

Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License. For details, see the Google Developers Site Policies. Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Craig Lloyd is a smarthome expert with nearly ten years of professional writing experience. His work has been published by iFixit, Lifehacker, Digital Trends, Slashgear, and GottaBeMobile. Read more.

The Nest Hello can alert you on your phone whenever someone rings your doorbell, but if you have a Google Home, you can also have Google Assistant audibly announce that someone is at the door.

How is this any different than just a doorbell chime, you ask? Well, it’s definitely a bit similar, but the Google Home can also tell you who exactly the person is if the Nest Hello recognizes him or her based on its Familiar Faces feature (which is only available with a Nest Aware subscription).

To get started, you’ll first need to download the Google Assistant app to your phone if you’re an iPhone user. For Android users, you’re already good to go.

Next, open the Nest app and tap your Nest Hello.

Tap the settings gear icon in the top right corner of the screen.

Select “Visitor Announcements” in the list.

On the Visitor Announcements page, tap “Set Up in Google Assistant App” at the bottom.

You’ll be taken to the Google Assistant settings if you’re on Android. iPhone users who just installed the app will be prompted through screens to set up the app.

Once you set up the Google Assistant app, you’ll get to a screen where you’ll log in with your Nest username and password. Hit “Sign In” to continue.

On the next screen, scroll down, and then tap “Allow” to link Google Assistant with your Nest Hello (and other Nest products if you have them).

Give it a few moments and you’ll be prompted to go back to the Nest app.

Back in the Nest app, tap the toggle switch to enable Visitor Announcements for your Nest Hello.

You’re all set to go! Your Google Home will automatically announce that someone came to your door. And if you have Familiar Faces enabled, it will even tell you exactly who is at your door if your Nest Hello recognizes the person.

Of course, if you don’t have Familiar Faces enabled, it’s really nothing more than just a glorified doorbell chime, but if you usually hang out in an area of your house where you normally can’t hear the regular chime, even that’s pretty useful.

• Along with the launch of new Google hardware this week, there are many Google Assistant updates on the way.
• A lot of the Google Assistant updates will hit Google hardware first, but many will come to all Android devices eventually.
• It’s clear Google is continuing to go all-in as an “AI first” company.

The long-awaited Google hardware event took place on Tuesday, but we’re still unpacking a lot of the updates and announcements from the company. Today, Google published a laundry list of all the various Google Assistant updates coming to various pieces of Google hardware.

To be clear, a lot of these Google Assistant updates will hit Google-branded devices first, especially the Google Pixel 3 and Google Home Hub. However, at some point in the future most (if not all) of these updates will roll out to capable Android devices.

Those of you who already pre-ordered your Google Pixel 3 or Google Home Hub should check out the list below as it will give you an idea of all the cool new tricks you’ll have access to. Those of you who passed on the new Google devices should also check out the list because you’ll likely eventually see these features (and will just have to be jealous of early adopters in the meantime).

Smart Displays

As previously mentioned, Google launched the Google Home Hub on Tuesday, the first Google-branded smart display and one of only three smart displays on the market powered by the Google Assistant (the other two being the JBL Link View and the Lenovo Smart Display). Although the updates below are coming to the Google Home Hub (and Google really wants you to know that), the features are also coming to the other two, non-Google devices.

• You can now use Google Assistant to create multi-room audio using your smart speakers, which includes the Google Home Hub.
• The new Live Albums from Google Photos uses Assistant to create photo albums on-the-fly based on people, locations, or topics you want to see.
• The new Home View layout will allow you to easily see the status of your smart home with a quick swipe down from the top of your smart display. This is also coming to the Android Google Home app.
• Google Assistant can now control more smart devices and can do so from within the Google Home app or your smart display interface. No more app switching!
• The various tools within Digital Wellbeing are coming to smart displays.

Smartphones

It’s very clear — despite the hilarious objections from Samsung — that Google loves the new Pixel 3 smartphones and thinks you will love them as well. That’s why nearly all of the new Google Assistant updates for phones are coming to Pixel 3 first. Some will then later come to the other Pixel smartphones, and then eventually roll out to Android at large.

• Google Assistant will screen your calls using Google Duplex technology. You’ll be able to see a real-time transcription of the call.
• Using Duplex once again, you will be able to book restaurant reservations in select areas of the U.S. (with more to come later).
• See a visual snapshot of your day right in the Google Assistant interface. This snapshot is catered specifically to you and your schedule and will be available for all smartphones, not just Pixels.
• You can use Google Assistant within the lock screen if you opt-in to the service on your Pixel 3.

All these updates confirm Google is going all-in with Google Assistant and sticking to its new “AI first” mantra.

Workspace and regular Google account users can now gain more control over their Google Calendar by adjusting their settings to show or hide holidays based on what’s relevant to them. Basically, Calendar has always shown all holidays to all people within reason, but a new update now makes sure that official public holidays that aren’t celebrated where you live – such as Thanksgiving Day in the United States, or the Summer Banks holiday in the U.K. – and even smaller, less official holidays like Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day won’t show for you or your organization if they don’t affect your workflow.

The two settings available to toggle are ‘Public holidays and other holidays’, or ‘Public holidays only’, and each option respects your region. If you haven’t checked yet, this is already available by default for both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains and requires no action on behalf of Admins or users.

The only exception is Calendar for iOS – that rollout begins on May 25 and will take up to 2 weeks. Users can manage their holidays on their own calendar via Settings > Add Calendar > Browse Calendars of Interest > Regional holidays. At this point, Google can add pretty much any polish they want to its services and people will be happy.

I know many have spoken about the company implementing some fundamentals, but so long as there’s a balance I don’t mind. Is there anything missing from Google Calendar that you’d love to have before smaller tweaks like this? Let me know in the comments!

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One of the perks of in-person school is the structure it brings to your kids’ day: There’s a schedule for students to follow, with clear start and finish times for each period, probably marked by a bell, and possible consequences for tardiness.

But when you’re at home, the school day can pretty quickly turn into a time warp, and your kids’ attention can be easily overtaken by any number of distractions in your home. If you’re staring down the possibility of at-home learning for the foreseeable future, you’re gonna want some semblance of structure—and your smart speaker can help you out.

Here’s how to employ Alexa or Google Assistant to keep your homeschooled kids on track.

Set up Family Bell with Google Assistant

Google just launched a feature for Google Assistant called Family Bell, which lets you pick specific times for your speaker to chime throughout the day—at the start of a period, the end of lunch or the beginning of nap time, for example. You can launch it using a voice command (“Hey Google, create a Family Bell”) but it’s probably easier to go through your Google Home app for more control over times, days and routines.

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To set up Family Bell , open the app on your iOS or Android device and tap your profile photo in the top right corner. Tap Assistant settings > Assistant > Family Bell > Add a bell and enter the details (including what you want the “bell” to say). You can update or change the announcement in this same menu. Since this feature is brand-new, you may need to update your app if you don’t see the Family Bell option.

You can also use Google Assistant’s routines to pair multiple actions, like turning on a light, playing a chime, saying a command and launching a song or audiobook (or whatever you need for your learning objectives). In the app, go to Assistant > Routines and tap the plus sign to create a custom routine.

Set up Reminders with Alexa

If you have an Amazon Echo, you can replicate this using Alexa Reminders. Your speaker will play a set message and/or tone at a designated time, which you can repeat on a specific schedule.

To set up Reminders, open the Alexa app on your iOS or Android device, tap the menu button in the upper left corner, and tap Reminders & Alarms > Reminders. Hit the plus symbol to create a new reminder, and enter what you want Alexa to say. From there, you can also edit the time, frequency and devices that broadcast the message.

Alexa also has the option to pair several actions together into a routine. Under the menu, select Routines and hit the plus sign. From here, follow the prompts to set up IFTTT routines on designated days and at designated times. As with Google Assistant, you can bring your other smart home devices into the mix.

There will be a lot of info to sift through in the next 48 hours

Well, folks: today is the day! Google I/O 2022 is upon us and we’re expecting some pretty big things from Google’s yearly developer conference. There are a bunch of hardware speculations that have been going around the internet for months at this point, but we’re pretty sure only a couple of those types of announcements will happen.

There’s a chance, however, that Google chooses to really start leaning into hardware at Google I/O for the first time and we could see as many as 4 or 5 new hardware announcements if that is the case. As these things tend to go, however, I would caution against getting your hopes too high on the hardware front.

Instead, be ready to see some really cool stuff that Google is doing on the software front with Chrome, ChromeOS, Android, WearOS, Google Home and Google Assistant. Google I/O is always good for getting an early peek at breakthroughs in software that Google is either ready to ship soon or will be debuting in the near future. And I doubt this year will be any different.

Where you can watch the Google I/O 2022 Keynote

There are always two main keynotes in addition to all the breakout sessions at Google I/O. The first keynote, beginning at 10AM PST/1PM EST, is the more-general announcement time. The things we expect in this part of the proceedings are new software and hardware additions that general users will see, understand, and appreciate.

The second keynote – the Developer Keynote – tends to jumpstart the more developer-focused news. This keynote can get a bit harder to understand for non-developer folks, but there are always a few awesome nuggets of info even for the casual observer to geek out about. This keynote will begin shortly after the main keynote wraps up and is generally about 2 hours later.

There are a few ways to see it all happen live. First, we’ve embedded the video feed right above this paragraph. You can chill here at Chrome Unboxed and take it all in. If you are a part of our Patreon community, jump in and we’ll be in there reacting and conversating. If you aren’t and would like to be, just head to and you can get in on the conversation.

Additionally, you can head to Google’s YouTube channel to watch everything or simply go to the official Google I/O website to find the keynotes embedded there closer to watch time. On the Google I/O website, you’ll also find all the available sessions (there are a bunch of them) that will be viewable on-demand at different times over the next few days. If you register, you can bookmark and lay out your viewing schedule as you please.

There will be a lot of info coming from Google over the next few days, and we’ll be highlighting anything that should be of impact for our audience, including ChromeOS, Chrome, Android, and Google Assistant news. Be sure to stop back by quite a bit over the next few days so you don’t miss out, or simply subscribe to the newsletter (below or in the sidebar) to be alerted when we post something new. Happy Google I/O to all of you!

Workspace and regular Google account users can now gain more control over their Google Calendar by adjusting their settings to show or hide holidays based on what’s relevant to them. Basically, Calendar has always shown all holidays to all people within reason, but a new update now makes sure that official public holidays that aren’t celebrated where you live – such as Thanksgiving Day in the United States, or the Summer Banks holiday in the U.K. – and even smaller, less official holidays like Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day won’t show for you or your organization if they don’t affect your workflow.

The two settings available to toggle are ‘Public holidays and other holidays’, or ‘Public holidays only’, and each option respects your region. If you haven’t checked yet, this is already available by default for both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains and requires no action on behalf of Admins or users.

The only exception is Calendar for iOS – that rollout begins on May 25 and will take up to 2 weeks. Users can manage their holidays on their own calendar via Settings > Add Calendar > Browse Calendars of Interest > Regional holidays. At this point, Google can add pretty much any polish they want to its services and people will be happy.

I know many have spoken about the company implementing some fundamentals, but so long as there’s a balance I don’t mind. Is there anything missing from Google Calendar that you’d love to have before smaller tweaks like this? Let me know in the comments!

All Google Workspace tiers
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Your Google Home isn’t just for music, news, and checking the weather

• Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College

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What to Know

• From the nearest Google Home speaker, say, “OK Google, broadcast.” It will say, “What’s the message?”
• Speak your message. It will be recorded and played over all the Google Home speakers on your network.
• Use the Google Assistant app on your Android or iPhone to broadcast messages to all Google Home devices on your Google account.

This article explains how to use your multiple Google Home speakers as an intercom system in your house using the “OK Google, broadcast” command. Instructions apply to Google Home, Mini, and Max smart speakers connected to the same Wi-Fi network. We also include instructions on using your Android phone or iPhone to broadcast.

Hey Google, Broadcast!

In this example, we’ll use the “OK Google, broadcast” command to ask the kids to check where the family pet is located. You’ll need to be logged in to your Google Account to use this command.

Wake your personal assistant by saying, “Hey Google, broadcast” or “OK Google, broadcast.” It will respond with “What’s the message?”

Speak your message. For example, say, “Kids, have you seen the dog?” Your message is recorded and played over all the Google Home speakers on your network.

The broadcast plays back everything you say in the next few seconds, so if you yell, your family will hear it.

Your family members can respond using the “OK Google, broadcast” command from their closest Google Home speaker.

Only one person can broadcast at a time.

If your Google Home is playing music or news, saying “OK Google, broadcast” mutes the audio while you’re talking to the speaker. It also interrupts the music playing on the other speakers in your home. This way, your message won’t be competing with what your family is listening to.

You can’t target only one of your speakers. If you want to communicate with a specific device, set up Google Duo.

Lifewire / Michela Buttignol

Use Your Phone to Broadcast

If you have the Google Assistant app on your Android phone or Apple iPhone, ask Google to broadcast messages to all Google Home devices connected to your Google account. You don’t need to be connected to your home Wi-Fi to use this function.

How to Set Up Family Broadcast

If you create a Google Family Group, you can communicate with everyone in your household wherever they are. Just give a command like, “Hey Google, tell my family we’re having dinner at six.” They can then respond from any device with the Google Home app, including their phones.

To set up a Google Family Group:

In the Google Home app, tap your profile icon in the upper-right corner.

Tap Assistant Settings.

Tap You under Popular Settings.

Tap Your People.

Tap Create Family Group.

You can also set reminders using the Family Bell feature and have an alarm play across all your devices.

Fun Canned Announcements to Try

You can use certain key phrases to let Google Assistant speak the announcement instead of using your voice. For example, “Hey Google, broadcast dinner is served” will sound a virtual dinner bell and announce dinner time to your family.

Using canned responses is a great way to avoid having to use your own voice for repeated announcements. Try saying. “It’s time for bed” and “wake up everyone” after you say “Hey Google, broadcast.” When you’re in the car on the way home, try using the canned phrase “OK Google, broadcast I’ll be home soon.”

It’s so easy, you don’t actually have to choose between the two.

Updated March 24, 2020

Recommendations are independently chosen by Reviewed’s editors. Purchases you make through our links may earn us a commission.

For those of us building a smart home, we all face the same problem: Which digital assistant to use? Between the vast libraries of skills and abilities of the two biggest players, Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, it can be tough to choose. But the good news is that you actually don’t have to. You can comfortably live with both assistants under one roof thanks to these helpful tips.

Use both at the same time

You’ve got a Google Home at one end of the living room and the best Echo speaker, Amazon’s Echo (third-generation) at the other—which one is worth talking to all the time? The answer is both. Both Google Assistant and Alexa offer plenty of connected home prowess. For the most part, they’re both capable of answering the same questions, executing the same smart home commands, and performing the same tricks. This is precisely why it’s so hard to choose between the two.

You shouldn’t have any trouble using a Google-enabled smart speaker placed next to one of Amazon’s Echo speakers. I’ve used both at the same time to control the same connected smart home accounts and answer the same questions without any issue. However, if I find that I prefer one device for a set of voice-controlled tasks, I will mute the other so that there is no room for error. Granted, both assistants respond to different wakeup words (“OK/Hey Google” and “Alexa”).

These two can go together like peanut butter and jelly.

If you want to use both Google Assistant and Alexa to control your smart home, you can pair both of their respective apps with your third-party devices with nary an issue so long as you plan on asking one assistant at a time for help. The only time this won’t work is if you have a device like the Amazon Echo Plus (second-generation), which acts as a smart home hub. In this case, Zigbee-compatible devices paired through the Amazon Alexa app aren’t configurable with Google Assistant.

Decide who belongs where

If you happen to be in a situation where you’re currently living with Google Assistant and Alexa, take a second to survey which assistant’s answers you prefer with oft-used commands and which device fits best into your particular usage scenario.

For instance, you might find the Nest Mini is a better smart speaker to have in the kitchen area because it’s got great sound quality for a small speaker and faster response times from Google Assistant that’s discernable over the sizzle of the stove.

Alternatively, the Amazon Echo Dot (third-generation) might perform better in the common areas where homework is done since the speaker delivers noticeably low-quality audio playback (though is much improved over previous generations of Echo Dot speakers).

A video-enabled smart display like Amazon’s Echo Show 8 or Google’s Nest Hub Max should be placed where it will get the most use and be accessible to anyone who wants to use the video calling feature, stream content from YouTube TV and Prime Video, watch recipe videos, and more. We think either smart display works best in the kitchen.

On the other hand, a larger speaker like the Google Home Max is better suited for big spaces like the living room or playroom where dancing and grooving take place, since it’s got a big sound.

Keep it maintained

The best way to live peacefully with both Google Assistant and Alexa under one roof is to keep track of what you’re setting up as you’re doing it. IFTTT is great for setting up straightforward smart home automation, but they can complicate things further if you have too many formulas set up that effectively perform the same action.

As with any smart home, if you have a ton of connected stuff set up inside your dwellings, make sure to keep everything updated so that all of your assistants maintain a level playing field.

Learn how to broadcast messages between your Google Home smart speakers, phone, and tablet no matter where you are.

Posted on Apr 16, 2019 Updated on May 20, 2021, 2:46 pm CDT

Google Home smart speakers can give you a summary of the latest news, control your lights and other smart home accessories , and now, stop everyone in your house from shouting, “Dinner’s ready!” or “Take your laundry out of the dryer so I can use it, please.” All you have to do is learn to use the intercom feature, also known as Broadcast.

Broadcast lets you record a message and send it to your smart home device where it plays aloud. You can broadcast from one Google Home device to another, or from your phone to your smart speakers. It works with pretty much anything that runs on the Google Assistant, including Google Home , Google Home Mini, Google Home Hub, and Google Home Max. Depending on which device you have, the people who hear your message can record and send a reply, too.

Here’s what you need to know about using Google Home as an intercom, including how it works and what it can and cannot do.

How to use Google Home as an intercom with Broadcast

How to broadcast from a phone or tablet

To record and broadcast a message from your phone or tablet, open the Google Home app and look on the home screen for the Broadcast button. Press it, and Google asks, “What’s the message?” Then, it automatically starts recording you. After you speak, there’s a delay while the Google Assistant transcribes what you said, which you can see on your phone or tablet. Then the message sends to your Google Home device where it plays.

How to broadcast from one Google Home device to another

To broadcast a message from one Google Home device to others, say, “Hey Google” or “Ok, Google,” followed by one of these commands:

• Broadcast
• Announce
• Shout
• Tell everyone

Then, simply say your message as the device records you.

When you broadcast in this way, your message plays on all Google Home devices, including the one you’re using to record the message. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but that’s how it works.

How to send a reply

If you’re on the receiving end of a broadcast, you can reply, although it only goes to the original device that sent the message. Note that if the original device was a phone or tablet, the reply goes to the Google Assistant app, not the Google Home app, so make sure you have it installed.

READ MORE:

To reply, say, “Hey, Google, reply…” and say your message, or “Ok, Google. Send a reply,” and wait for the prompt before saying anything else.

If you’re in front of a Google Home Hub, a reply button appears on the display, which you can tap to initiate a response.

Tips for better Google broadcasts

Here are a few tips and helpful things to know about using Google Home as an intercom.

1) Think first, speak second

Think through what you’re going to say before you start recording a broadcast. Google doesn’t give you an opportunity to preview your message or change it once you record it.

2) Reply quickly

The advice to think first, speak second isn’t easy to follow when it comes to replying. After you receive a message, you only have a short window when you can send a message back, about 10 to 12 seconds.

3) Use special broadcasts

A few special Google Broadcast commands play a prerecorded sound or message instead of your recorded voice. For example, if you say, “Hey, Google. Broadcast ‘wake up,’” you get a rooster crowing and the Google Assistant telling everyone to rise and shine.

4) Broadcast from anywhere

When using your phone or tablet to broadcast a message, you don’t have to be on the same Wi-Fi network as the Google Home device. You can broadcast from anywhere.

5) Recognize that it’s not a real-time intercom

There’s a reason Google calls its feature Broadcast rather than Intercom: It’s not a true intercom system. Intercoms let you have a real-time conversation, so two or more people can talk back and forth somewhat freely (although intercoms typically let only one person speak at a time). Broadcast doesn’t. Plus, there’s a noticeable delay, so you wouldn’t want to use it for anything truly urgent.

Still, it’s a useful tool that can decrease the amount of shouting in your home.

See more Google Home tips , such as how to use Google Home to make calls , to get the most out of your device.

Google has a gigantic presence at CES 2019, where it has announced a number of new Assistant features, integrations and potentially a game-changing Assistant Connect platform to expand the AI tool’s reach.

First up, the Assistant will soon feature a new Interpreter Mode that will be a “translator across dozens of languages”. In the next few weeks, Google Home and Smart Display users will be able to say “Hey Google, be my French [or insert language of choice] interpreter” to receive real-time spoken and/or written translations.

Related: CES 2019 Day 3

Google says the tech will eventually expand to more places, which could help users check into foreign hotels, or understand the bus schedule in a new location. The feature is currently being piloted as Caesars Palace in Las Vegas ahead of the wider roll out.

On the subject of travel, Google is also enabling iOS and Android users to check into their flight using their voice, without needing to remember the confirmation number.

Starting with domestic flights with United Airlines in the US, the Assistant will be able to leverage the information stored within a Google account. After check in, it’ll go one step further by retrieving and saving your boarding pass from the airline.

Sticking with the theme, Google Maps will soon benefit from a little Assistant assistance. While travelling, users will be able to command the tool to share the ETA, search for places along the route, add a new stop, as well as replying to messages and controlling media playback.

However, perhaps the biggest news long term is the launch of Google Assistant Connect, a new SDK the company says is “a platform that device manufacturers can use to bring the Google Assistant into devices in an affordable and easy-to-implement way. Connect uses the existing smart home platform to expand to new device types while making device setup and discovery simple for people.”

Google says, for example, a Connect partner could create an e-ink display for a bathroom mirror (main picture) that projects the weather or a calendar with information fed from a Google Assistant-based display or smart speaker. It promises to reveal more about the platform and how device owners can get involved later this year.

Elsewhere Google announced new a new Smart Display from KitchenAid and a new Smart Clock from Lenovo that’s designed to rival the Amazon Echo Spot. It also showcased the Assistant working on Sonos speakers, following a long, long delay.

Finally, Google announced new integrations with a range of new smart home devices, including a pressure cooker, refrigerators, ovens and dishwashers as well as thermostats, water leak sensors, EV chargers, irrigation timers and the McAfee Secure platform.

Which Google Assistant announcement from CES most impressed you? Let us know @TrustedReviews on Twitter.

Users can delete a record of a command by saying, ‘Hey Google, that wasn’t for you’.

Campbell is a journalist for ZDNet, covering technology’s impact across the gamut of government, law, and regulation.

At this year’s CES, Google announced on Tuesday all of the new capabilities it’s adding to its voice assistant, including various additions to the way it handles privacy.

CES 2021

• All the best laptop announcements
• What’s hot and useful in the enterprise
• Three trends CIOs should watch very closely
• Innovation Awards: Winners and trends
• Asus decides ZenBooks need an automatically tilting second display
• Acer launches Spin 514 Chromebook with AMD Ryzen 3000
• HP updates home office line-up
• Lenovo launches ThinkPad X12 Detachable
• Motorola launches Motorola One 5G Ace at $399
• Dell devices aimed at work’s new normal

One of the Assistant’s new privacy features will allow users to delete a record of the most recent command by saying, “Hey Google, that wasn’t for you”.

This means users can delete voice records immediately if someone else starts a separate conversation in the background, or if the user decides that what was said should not be shared, according to Google.

Users can also ask “Hey Google, are you saving my audio data?” to learn about their privacy controls and go directly into the settings screen to change their preferences, as well as delete voice assistant activity from a Google Account by saying things like “Hey Google, delete everything I said to you this week.”

The Assistant has had its fair share of privacy concerns, with Google confirming in August that third-party workers were “systematically listening” and leaking private Dutch conversations collected by the assistant.

Belgian public broadcaster VRT NWS revealed that more than 1,000 files had been leaked from these workers, including recordings from instances where users accidentally triggered Google’s software. After the incident, Google paused all of its language review operations.

Last week, a Reddit user discovered that he could see scenes from other people’s homes when he connected his Google Nest Hub to a camera made by Xiaomi. Since this was publicised, Google has disabled Nest Hub integration from all Xiaomi devices.

These new privacy features come not too long after Google decided to revamp its Assistant privacy policy last year. The changes from last year included Google making it default for the voice assistant to not retain audio recordings once a request is fulfilled, meaning that users have to opt-in to let Google keep any voice recordings made by the device. It also added a feature that allows users to review and delete past, historical audio recordings.

Google is not the only company to have come under fire for its usage of audio data. Amazon was the first firm to be criticised after it was discovered last year that human operators eavesdropped on Alexa device interactions.

Other additions to the Assistant announced by Google on Tuesday include the ability to schedule certain tasks. For example, users that have a Google Home-integrated washer or dryer can schedule a load of laundry with the Assistant. This feature is set to be rolled out later this year.

Along with this, Google has added support for various new smart device categories such as AC units, coffee makers, vacuums, and smart bathtubs, among others.

Google also gave insight into how many people are using its voice assistant, saying at CES that over 500 million people use the Assistant every month and that there are currently over 1 billion devices that can use it.

See all of ZDNet’s CES coverage here.

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It appears that Google has the release schedule for Chrome and Chrome OS back on track. Last week, version 84 of the Chrome browser dropped right on time and with any luck, Chrome OS 84 should start rolling out in the next day or two. There were a handful of updates we were expecting with this release but a post in the Chromebook Support Forum reveals that Chrome OS 84 will arrive bearing an abundance of treats for Chromebook users. We’re going to take a quick run through all of the official announcements. When 84 begins rolling out, we’ll break down some of the more notable updates and additions. So, without further ado, here’s what’s new in Chrome OS 84.

Explore

Chromebooks come with a built-in “help app” that allows users to “discover” features and learn how to navigate Chrome OS. Most users likely dismiss this the Help App when it pops up during the out of box setup but I have found that it actually contains a wealth of useful information for new and seasoned users alike. There’s even a contact support button that will take you to the official Chromebook Support Forum.

Recently, the Help App has been undergoing a major overhaul and was rebranded “Discover.” It looks like Google has decided to take a detour from that branding and now, Chrome OS 84 will feature the completely revamped “Explore app” that brings with it Google’s material design and does a much better job of engaging users. With Explore, you can experience interactive tutorials, check out Chromebook perks and even get contact information for the manufacturer of your specific device. As with the Help App, Explore will greet users when they set up a Chrome OS device for the first time.

Overview Mode

We weren’t expecting this update to drop until Chrome OS 85 but we were excited to see it arrive in this pending update. When using overview mode in conjunction with an extended display, will now be able to drag items from overview into your external monitor. You will also be able to snap windows to either side of your display directly from overview mode.

MP4 video capture

For as long as I can remember, Chromebooks have saved videos from the webcam as .mkv file formats. That’s all fine and well if you’re just playing them locally or sending them to someone else using a Chromebook but it’s an awkward format that doesn’t play well with a lot of other devices. In Chrome OS 84, the camera will now use the widely-used .mp4 format for saving videos. This will make them easier to share with other users and most devices support this type of video file. In addition to the video update, convertible and tablet Chromebooks will now use the volume button to snap photos. This will make snagging photos in tablet mode a lot easier. Also, holding the volume button with the camera app open will take a series of photos similar to burst mode on a phone.

Everything else

Along with these major updates, the Chromium team squashed 208 bugs in Chrome OS. Other notable updates and additions include microphone access for Linux apps that can be enabled via the Linux (Beta) settings menu, resizable virtual keyboard, search in ChromeVox and some new emojis. You can spice up your chats with a yawning face emoji (🥱), an ear with a hearing aid (🦻 ), and a sari (🥻). As with Chrome 84, Chrome OS will now block downloads of executable files over a mixed, non-secure connection. I’m sure we’ll uncover some more goodies when Chrome OS 84 rolls out over the next couple of days. So, stay tuned for updates on these new features and anything else we may find.

Future of Work Assessment

Our new assessment helps your organization prepare for the new era of work.

Between holidays and vacations, keeping track of your schedule (or your team’s schedule) can get tricky this time of year. For our latest G Suite Pro Tip, we explain how to automatically add a schedule from Google Sheets into a team Calendar. This tip is also handy if you need to auto-schedule reminders in Calendar based on tasks you have in a project tracker or spreadsheet.

If you’re new to using Apps Script, it’s an easy-to-use, low-code platform that can help you tailor your G Suite applications. Don’t worry, you don’t need a Computer Science degree to get started. We’ll break it down for you step-by-step.

Before you dig into the code, we recommend that you reformat dates in your spreadsheet to make it easier to program. Go to Format > Number > Date Time.

Getting started in Apps Script

If you’re new to using Apps Script, it’s an easy-to-use, low-code platform that can help you tailor your G Suite applications. Don’t worry, you don’t need a Computer Science degree to get started. We’ll break it down for you step-by-step.

Before you dig into the code, we recommend that you reformat dates in your spreadsheet to make it easier to program. Go to Format > Number > Date Time.

Coding is made simple when you break down the steps you need to complete a task into “sub-tasks.” We have four key actions that need to happen in order to sync data to a Calendar via code. Those sub-tasks are:

1. Identify the calendar
2. Import data from the spreadsheet
3. Create events

1. Make the script shareable for others to use

In this example, I set up skeleton code in Apps Script to make it easier for Kam to learn the G Suite service calls (you can see it in the video). Now we can input simple Apps Script calls to facilitate each sub-task!

Step 1: Identify the calendar

First, we need to decide which Calendar we want to add information into. In this example, we want to add information from a spreadsheet into a team calendar. We use SpreadsheetApp to retrieve information from the spreadsheet that we’re working in. Then, the code will help us retrieve the value of the calendar ID from the cell that it lives in.

With that out of the way, we’re ready to port information from our Sheet into Calendar!

Coding is made simple when you break down the steps you need to complete a task into “sub-tasks.” We have four key actions that need to happen in order to sync data to a Calendar via code. Those sub-tasks are:

1. Identify the calendar
2. Import data from the spreadsheet
3. Create events

1. Make the script shareable for others to use

In this example, I set up skeleton code in Apps Script to make it easier for Kam to learn the G Suite service calls (you can see it in the video). Now we can input simple Apps Script calls to facilitate each sub-task!

Step 1: Identify the calendar

First, we need to decide which Calendar we want to add information into. In this example, we want to add information from a spreadsheet into a team calendar. We use SpreadsheetApp to retrieve information from the spreadsheet that we’re working in. Then, the code will help us retrieve the value of the calendar ID from the cell that it lives in.

Need help keeping track of upcoming appointments or how long that load of laundry has left? Just ask Alexa or open up the app for customized alerts.

Do you need help juggling the many events, appointments, meetings, and tasks in your life? With an Echo device, Alexa is at your service.

You can set up reminders so Alexa will notify you when a task or appointment is due. Create an alarm and use Alexa to wake up in the morning or alert you when a message arrives. Set up a timer for everything—from a boiling egg to an intense race. You can even add items to a to-do list or shopping list. Alexa will aid you via any Echo device, many third-party Alexa gadgets, and the Alexa app (Opens in a new window) . Here’s how to set everything up.

Set Up Alexa Reminders

Reminders serve as short-term alarms to help you remember certain activities or events. When a reminder comes due, Alexa chimes out “Here’s your reminder,” and then it tells you twice.

The one downside is that the reminder only sounds off on the Echo device on which you set it. So if you have more than one Echo device, be sure to set the reminder on the device you use the most frequently. As a backup, the reminder also appears on your mobile device via the Alexa app.

To set one up, say “Alexa, create a new reminder.” Alexa will ask you what the reminder is for. Tell Alexa what it is, such as “go to the dentist,” “start the laundry,” or “begin cooking dinner.” Alexa then asks you for the date and time. You can say something like “Today at 3pm,” “Tomorrow at 4pm,” or “July 10 at 10am.” To cut to the chase, provide all the details of the reminder in one shot, such as: “Alexa, remind me to start the laundry today at 2:30pm.”

Alternatively, set up a reminder through the Alexa app. Open the app, tap the More icon in the lower right, and then select Reminders. At the Reminders screen, tap the Add Reminder button.

Fill in the appropriate fields with the reminder name, date, time, and the Echo device on which you want to hear the reminder. Tap Save to save the reminder. To hear your reminders, say “Alexa, what are my reminders?” and it will read them to you.

You can also go to the Reminders section in the Alexa app to see them. Remove a reminder by saying, “Alexa, delete [name of reminder]” or all reminders by saying: “Alexa, delete all reminders.” From the app, open the reminder you want to remove and tap Delete.

Set Up Alexa Alarms

You can use Alexa as a replacement for the traditional alarm clock by saying “Alexa, set an alarm.” Alexa asks you for the day and time and sets the alarm after you provide the details. You can also include the information in one shot. Say “Alexa, set an alarm for 10:45 am today” or “Alexa, set an alarm for 8am tomorrow.” Or ask for a recurring alarm to sound off every day, specific weekdays, or every weekend. (“Alexa, set a recurring alarm for 7am every Monday.”)

To set an alarm from the Alexa app, tap the More icon and select Alarms & Timers. Tap Add Alarm and set the time, the device on which you want to hear the alarm, and the interval. You can even set an alarm to trigger a certain tone or piece of music instead of the typical alarm sound. When the alarm goes off, your Echo device will play the sound you set up. You can say “Alexa, stop” to turn it off or “Alexa, snooze” to postpone the alarm for nine minutes.

Keep track of your alarms by asking “Alexa, what are my alarms?” Check the Alarms section in the Alexa app to review your existing alarms, or create new ones. Tap a specific alarm to alter its time, change its sound, modify its interval, or delete it. Delete an alarm by swiping left and tapping Delete. Or say “Alexa, delete [time of alarm]” or “Alexa, delete all alarms.”

Set Up Alexa Timers

Don’t use the microwave as an egg timer anymore—use Alexa’s named timer functionality to juggle multiple timers at one time. (“Alexa, set an egg timer for 3 minutes” if you’re boiling an egg or “Alexa, set a laundry timer for 30 minutes,” for example.)

Your timers appear in the Timers section of the Alexa app, where you can pause or cancel each one and change its volume. You can also ask “Alexa, what are my timers?” It will give you the names and countdowns of your current timers. Want to delete a timer? Tell Alexa to cancel or pause a specific timer or cancel them all in one command.

When you set up a timer on your Echo device, Alexa will chime in and tell you the countdown has hit zero. Say “Alexa, turn off timer” or just say “Alexa, stop” to shut it off.

Set Up Alexa To-Do Lists

You can use your Echo device to create shopping lists or general to-do lists that can help you juggle all the tasks in your life. Concoct these lists via voice by saying something like “Alexa, add milk to my shopping list” or “Alexa, add ‘take car to the mechanic’ to my to-do list.”

To set up a list from the Alexa app, tap the More icon and select Lists & Notes. At the next screen, tap the list for Shopping or To-Do to add items to either list. Alternatively, tap the Create list button to devise an entirely new list. Once a list is created, ask “Alexa, what’s on my shopping list” or “Alexa, what’s on my to-do list,” and Alexa rattles off the items on either list.

Or check your lists in the Alexa app. Go back to the Lists & Notes screen in the app and open the list you wish to view or edit. Check an item to mark it as completed. Swipe it to the left to delete it.

Want more options for maintaining a to-do list? Tap into third-party to-do services, such as Any.do or Todoist, which are more robust than Alexa’s built-in to-do skill. From the Alexa app, tap the More icon and then select Skills & Games.

Conduct a search by tapping the search icon in the upper-right corner. Type the word lists in the field for keyword or skill name. From the search results, tap lists skills or just lists. You can now browse the array of skills related to lists and making lists.

With such items as AnyList (Opens in a new window) , Cozi Lists (Opens in a new window) , or Picniic (Opens in a new window) , you must enable the skill in the Alexa app. You then have to create or sign in with an account for that service to use the skill. With skills such as Any.do and Todoist, you’re asked to leave the Alexa app and set up access to the third-party app.

After you’ve set up an account with any of the third-party list services, you can tell Alexa to add an item to your shopping list or to-do list, and Alexa will use that service.

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