If you just got a Google Assistant device like a Nest Mini or a Nest Hub
and are wondering what the heck do I actually do with the Google Assistant? Or
you just want to brush up on your Google Assistant skills, this is the video for
you. In this video I'm going to take you through all of the core main features of
the Google Assistant including music and media playback, smart home controls,
recipes, reminders, lists, and of course search queries, just to name a few things.
So let's dive in. Now the Google Assistant has been the piece of
technology that has had the largest impact on my life by far.
Over the past 5 years I find myself using it constantly on the various
speakers around my home, on my pixel phone, and even went on a run with my
pixel buds. The main way you interact with the Google Assistant is by using
the Wake word, which I'm not going to do now because I don't want to trigger your
Google Assistant while you're watching us at home. But just know that in all of the
examples we have in this video, I will be leaving out the Wake word. Alright, now
let's move on to our first feature of the Google Assistant and that is music
and media playback. The Google Assistant can play your favorite music from a
variety of music streaming services including Google Play Music, YouTube
Music, Spotify, Pandora, and more. Once you sync your music streaming service with
your Google Assistant through the Google Assistant app found on Android and iOS
devices, you're good to go. You can ask Google on any Google Assistant device to
play a song, play an artist, a playlist in your music library, a radio station, etc.
Now if you don't know the artist or the song title but you know a lyric from the
song, if you're using Google Play Music or YouTube Music, you can ask Google to
play that lyric and it will typically figure out what song you're trying to
play. [Josh]"Play you need to calm down" [Google] "All
right you need to calm down by taylor swift here it is on Google Play Music." If
you have more than one Google Assistant speaker device in your residence, you can
group them together using speaker groups, allowing you to play music on all of
your speakers throughout your entire home. [Josh] "Play artist Coldplay on all of
Josh's speakers." [Google] "Alright, Coldplay from Google Play Music." Need to
move music from one speaker or speaker group to another? No problem.
Google can do that. [Josh] "Move music to Bedroom Max." [Google} "Alright I'll play it on
Bedroom Max." The Google Assistant doesn't just stop
with music though, it can also play podcasts through services like Google
podcasts and Spotify, as well as it can play movies and TV shows through cast
devices. [Josh] "Play Rick and Morty on TV." [Google} "OK, Rick and Morty from Hulu, playing on TV."
[Josh] "Play the crown on Netflix on TV." [Google] "Sure the crown from Netflix playing on TV." It can
also play YouTube videos on smart displays as well. [Google] "Playing Nest Hub Review
six months later on YouTube.' Next up, let's talk about controlling your smart
home devices with the Google Assistant. The Google Assistant can work with a
variety of devices including smart lights, thermostats, smart switches,
robotic vacuum cleaners, home security systems, TVs, and more. To add a smart
device to your Google Assistant, you'll need to download the Google Home app and
set up your smart devices through the app. By doing this you'll also link them
to the Google Assistant and there's a place in the app to see all of the
different services you can potentially connect to the Google Assistant. You can
automate your smart home devices and your Google Assistant actions by using
what are called Google Assistant routines. Routines allow you to set
triggers to complete different Google Assistant actions, for example, you can
turn on your Christmas lights by saying a certain phrase, have your good morning
routine come on at 8:00 a.m. every morning, where the Google Assistant will
adjust your lights, tell you the weather, current traffic conditions, turn off your
fan, and humidifier, and start playing today's news. One of the largest
differentiators for the Google assistant compared to other voice assistants out
there is its search capabilities. Think of it like the Google search bar in the
form of an assistant. You can ask it a wide variety of questions and for the
most part it's going to answer those questions correctly. Here are a few
examples: [Josh] "How many Academy Awards has John Williams won?"
[Google] "John Williams has five won Academy Awards, they include the Academy Award
for Best Original Music score for Schindler's List in 1994 and the Academy
Award for Best Original Music score for E.T. the Extra Terrestrial in 1983, among
others. Let me know if you want me to tell you more." [Josh] "What's the weather today
in Raleigh?" [Google] "In Raleigh today, there'll be scattered thunderstorms with a
forecasted high of 68 and a low of 57." [Josh] "What's it look like for the rest of the
week?" [Google] "Here's the forecast for Raleigh." [Josh] "What are the main ingredients in
Gingerbread?" [Google] "On the website brainley.com they say,
flour is the main ingredient in gingerbread cookies as in most cookies
however ginger and molasses are important ingredients as well as they
contribute to the cookies unique taste." [Josh]"Does the Apple TV remote need batteries?"
[Google] "On the website support.apple.com they say, your Siri remote, or Apple TV remote,
has a rechargeable battery not a replaceable battery." Moving on, let's talk
about alarms and timers with the Google Assistant. Whether you have a Nest Mini,
Nest Hub, Pixel device or other Google Assistant device like the Lenovo Smart
Clock, you can use the Google Assistant to set alarms and timers. To set a timer
just ask Google to set a timer for however long you need the timer to be
and then when the timer rings, just say stop and the Google Assistant will stop
the timer. [Josh] "Set a timer for 3 seconds." [Google] "Ok 3 seconds, starting now"...[Josh] "Stop." To set an
alarm you can ask Google to set an alarm for a specific time on a specific day, on
weekends or weekdays, or specific different days throughout
week. There are a lot of options you have with setting alarms with the Google
Assistant and once the alarm goes off, all you have to do is say stop and
Google will stop the alarm. You can view your alarm settings through the Google
Home app or on some devices like the Lenovo smart clock.
Another great feature with the Google Assistant is the ability to manage lists
with your voice. This really comes in handy for shopping lists specifically so
when you've run out of your last avocado or you're running out of olive oil you
can simply ask Google to [Josh] "Add avocados and olive oil to my shopping list."
[Google] "Alright I added those two things." You can also create new lists as well as delete
lists with the Google Assistant as well. [Josh] "Create a new list called target run." [Google] "Okay,
starting a list called target run, what do you want to add?" Your shopping list is
a default list that will already exist when you set up your Google Assistant
for the first time. To see what's on your list simply ask Google [Josh] 'What's on my
shopping list? [Google] "You have seven things on that list, they are olive oil, avocados, olive
oil, avocados, black beans, and two others." Another quick and useful assistant
function is reminders. Google can remind you to do something on a specific day, at
a specific time, and you can even assign a reminder to someone in your household
like reminding your spouse to take out the trash etc. Google will show you a
white reminder dot on the Google assistant speakers [Google] "I have a reminder for
Josh." and on Google Assistant displays it'll show you what the reminder is.
Recipes are another popular feature with the Google Assistant. Say you have some
chicken but you don't quite know how you want to fix it yet, all you have to do is
ask Google [Josh] "Show me some chicken recipes." [Google] "Okay here are some recipes." You can
select the recipe you want and get cooking. The Google Assistant will guide
you through all of the ingredients needed for the recipe and guide you
through each step. If you have a Google Assistant smart display like the Nest
Hub or Lenovo smart display, the experience is a bit
easier because you can actually read the recipe on the display and browse through
the list of recipe results. Next up, let's take a look at how to make phone calls
with your Google Assistant devices. You can set up this functionality in the
Google Home app so that when your Google device calls a number, the person
answering will look at their phone and see that it's you that's calling them
and not some random number. You can also sync your phone contacts with the Google
Assistant to make it easier to call the people you want. At the time of this
recording, you still cannot take an incoming phone call on a Google
Assistant device, unless that device is an Android phone. If you have a Google
pixel phone, you can actually use the Google Assistant to screen calls from
people you may not know to see if the call is legitimate. Playing the news is
another useful feature of the Google Assistant. You can select what sources
you want Google to play from when you ask it to play the news in the Google
Assistant app, you can ask Google for a specific news topic as well. [Josh] "Give me the
latest news on Tesla." [Google] "Here's the latest from CNBC, Tesla (TSLA) Q4 2019 - production
and delivery numbers. Tesla said it delivered approximately 367,500
vehicles last year, an impressive 50%
increase from 2018 and in line with Musk's forecasts. "On Google
Assistant displays, the Google Assistant can also play your news videos as well.
Next up, let's talk about photos. You can use the Google Assistant to search for
specific types of photos on your Google Assistant smart displays as well as your
mobile devices. [Josh] "Show me photos of tabby cats." [Google] "Showing your photos of tabby cats."
More impressive though is the Google Assistants integration with your Google
Photos account. If you have Google Photos you can ask the Google Assistant to show
you photos from say last Christmas, show you photos of a specific person or pet
you've named in Google Photos and it'll even show you photos of a place you took
a picture of. Alright, well I know that was a lot of information and the truth
is we barely scratched the surface to everything the Google Assistant can do.
So if you want to learn more about what the Google Assistant can do you've got a
few options. One, make sure you're subscribed to this channel. We do Google
Assistant feature update videos throughout the year we typically release
them about once a month or so so if you're subscribed to the channel, you'll
never miss out on one of those. Number two, follow Google's blog called The Keyword.
Sometimes they'll announce major Google Assistant feature updates on
their blog and number three, and one of my favorite ways to figure out what's
new with Google is by simply asking the Google Assistant [Josh] "What can you do?" [Google] "You can
say define abracadabra or play google play music on bedside display." Well that
does it for our overview of the Google Assistant, I hope you found this video
helpful, if you like this video, make sure to give us a thumbs up below and
subscribe to the channel to see more Google Assistant and Google Assistant
device related videos like this one. For 6 Months Later, I'm Josh Teder, thanks