- [Instructor] Did you know you have a powerful assistant
living in your pocket and your home
just waiting to help with your day?
(upbeat music)
Google Assistant is a powerful tool
that a surprising amount of people
don't make use of to its full potential.
This is even more surprising when you think
that almost everyone now has a mobile phone
and a lot of homes also have at least one
Google Home device.
It can help organize your day,
alleviating you from having to remember
every single aspect of your daily agenda.
Just like a real assistant,
it will manage the minutia of your schedule,
enabling you to focus on getting the important things done,
whether it's just for your home life or even for work.
There are a number of invaluable features
that come free just by owning an Android phone
or using the Google Home app on your iPhone.
And one of the more powerful features is Routines.
Routines are essentially a way
to automate virtual tasks that will be triggered
either by time or a verbal prompt.
The benefit to a Routine
over just asking Google Assistant to do individual tasks
is you can say the command once.
If you own other smart devices in your home
that are compatible with Google Assistant,
your Routines can also control them too,
turning off lights, locking or unlocking your doors,
setting the temperature on your smart thermostat,
and even activating your robot vacuum cleaner.
Routines come in several preset variations,
but you can also create bespoke Routines custom-built
for your own unique requirements.
The average person will probably
find the default Routines useful enough by themselves.
For instance, the Good Morning Routine
comes with three preset actions that will tell you
the latest weather report,
read out your agenda on your calendar,
as well as your reminders.
However, the team at Google has also added a section
you'll find at the bottom called Suggested Actions.
This is a short list of some of the more creative
or sophisticated additional actions that you can do.
One of my favorites is the Workday Routine,
which I've set to automatically start
at the beginning of each week day.
Within this Routine, I have it broken out into time slots
from the morning through to the end of the day.
Another useful Routine I've set up
is one for bedtime with my kids.
Now with a single command, I can turn off the light
and play their favorite bedtime song.
Talking of which, what I find particularly impressive
is the ability to choose a specific song
using the YouTube Music database.
However, you're not limited to just music,
with shortcuts to news, radio stations,
podcasts, audio books, or even relaxation sounds.
To start creating the Routine,
open the Google Home app and tap your profile picture.
Then tap Assistant Settings.
Scroll down to Routines.
From there, you can see some of the preset Routines,
including the section called Workday.
The first step is to pick which device
you want your announcements to broadcast on.
Now choose the days of the week
that you want the Routine to run.
For me, I keep a Monday to Friday schedule.
Next, select a time that you want
your first announcement to broadcast.
My workday starts at 9:00 AM.
After that, go to Browse popular actions
and tap on Tell me the time,
which will announce the time at 9:00 AM.
As part of my daily prep, I like to know
what kind of weather we're going to have.
Tap weather in the list of actions
and it will announce the day's forecast.
I also want to know what today's reminders
and today's calendar entries are.
After I've done that, I want to add a new time
for lunch starting at 11:30 AM.
Tap on Say something to add your own personalized messages.
One cool feature is that you can write
your own custom message
which Google Assistant will read out.
- [Google Assistant] The time is 11:30 AM.
It's lunchtime.
- [Instructor] Next, I like to take a break
in the afternoon.
Just like before, choose a time,
and then again, Browse popular actions,
and tap Tell me the time.
I also want to know if there's any remaining reminders,
and I'll create a custom message by tapping Say something.
For the final part of the routine,
I have a prompt to start thinking
about finishing my day at 4:30 PM.
Like before, I want Google Assistant to announce the time
with a custom message, but this time I also want it
to tell me about tomorrow's first calendar entry
just to prep me for the next day.
And that's my basic Workday Routine to keep productive,
but also take regular breaks.
One limitation right now is that Routines
can't be triggered by location.
Unlike reminders or Google Keep entries,
Google Assistant doesn't have the ability
to start your I'm Home Routine
the moment you pull into the driveway.
Another thing I noticed was that the Scenes selection
for your lights is unusable
if you're using Phillips Hue.
It lumps all the various Hue lights
into an unmanageable generic list
and you're unable to easily ascertain which scene
corresponds to which light without some trial and error.
Another frustration is that Google
recently introduced new Shortcut Routines.
In theory, these enable you to start a specific action
in an app like Twitter to create a tweet
or Gmail to create an email.
However, the Show me my orders for Amazon command
launches amazon.com rather than amazon.ca,
which is a pain for me personally living in Canada.
Finally, one additional bugbear is the fact
that you can't set your Routine
to trigger on multiple devices.
I would personally find it helpful
as I'm not always near my Google Nest Hub at my desk.
I might be making breakfast in the kitchen
or doing something else around the house,
which would mean I'd miss out on my updates,
which is a little inconvenient.
Leave a comment if you have any personal frustrations
or even if you think that my examples
have been fixed since recording this.
Despite all the minor gripes,
it should be noted that the Google ecosystem
is constantly being updated.
And with AI and the assistant being a cornerstone
of Google's business focus right now,
you can pretty much guarantee that further improvements,
bug fixes and features are on the horizon.
If you made it this far,
I hope you found it interesting and informative.
Please like the video and subscribe
to my channel for future content
about the connected home and personal technology.