Well it's September and that means new
Google hardware
is just around the corner and the
company has been pushing a lot of
updates recently
to Google Assistant devices, so we've got
a lot to cover
in this video. Now before we dive into
the new features a word of warning,
if you live outside the United States or
you live in the US, but do not use the
u.s
english version of the Google Assistant,
some of the features demoed in this
video
may not have rolled out to you just yet.
First up
Netflix, yes Netflix, has finally started
to make its way
to Google Assistant displays starting
with the Nest Hub
and Nest Hub Max. You can now binge
whatever Netflix show you want
right from the Nest Hub Max or Nest Hub.
To get this to work make sure you go
into the Google Assistant settings
scroll down to videos and photos
and link your Netflix account. Then on
your display tell the Google Assistant
to play the latest episode of Queer Eye
or whatever Netflix show you fancy
and it'll start playing that show. Next
did you notice something different about
the Google Assistant settings?
Well actually it wasn't just the
assistant settings that look different,
Google has revamped how the settings
look for the Google Assistant on mobile
devices
but they have also revamped the
Assistant Snapshot view
for both iOS and Android. Assistant
Snapshot is a great way to get a summary
view of your most important tasks.
Assistant Snapshot would already show
you things like your commute times,
agenda, and reminders to pay bills, but
now it'll show you
other important things like other
reminders upcoming birthdays from your
contacts in english-speaking countries,
and holidays. The snapshot view will
constantly change
and update throughout the day making
sure it's showing you the most relevant
information
at the time you check it. Google is also
adding other recommendations in this
view as well
like recipes to make for dinner or
nearby restaurants that deliver.
You can even have it send you
notifications and when you click on that
notification the assistant will bring
you to the card
in Assistant Snapshot with some
suggestions for follow-up,
like telling somebody happy birthday or
even singing to them. You can get to this
view by opening up the assistant app on
Android or iPhone or asking the
Assistant to show you your day.
Now as mentioned before, the Google
Assistant settings got a minor tweak in
their design
now it'll show you popular settings
first, followed by settings for your
devices, and then the rest of the
settings follow that
listed in alphabetical order. Now one
feature that's new is called family bell,
which allows you to create
custom bells that announce different
activities to members of your family
through Google Assistant speakers. Well
actually they only announce it through
one speaker you can't play bells on a
group of speakers
you do need to choose an individual
Google Assistant speaker
to play a bell on. You can add whatever
bell you want or take a look at some of
the recommended bells from Google like a
lunchtime bell or one for going to bed.
This is a great feature especially for
families who are going through online
learning right now during Covid. Here's
an example of what a bell can sound like:
Google Assistant: "Three, two, one, it's a prime time for math time."
Alright, next up let's talk multi-room
audio controls.
Google has rolled out some new features
in this space the first of which is
called multi-room control,
now you could already group speakers and
play media on a group of speakers before
but now you can add and subtract
speakers playing the media in real time
from the multi-room speaker view on
Google Assistant displays.
Also one additional thing they added was
being able to ask Google to recommend
some music. When you do this you'll now
see artists and playlists pop
up on the screen in a card view and you
just tap on the card you want and then
it'll begin playing that media.
Also speaking of displays, starting on
September 15th, Google Assistant smart
displays will be able
to show not only the date a photo was
taken that is being displayed on the
screen,
but also the location that photo was
taken as well.
If the photo is coming from a Google
Photos library so
be on the lookout for that feature
coming soon. Alright next up let's talk
about some smart home devices that
connect to your Google Assistant. Google
just rolled out a new feature for you to
be able to tell the Google Home app what
exactly is plugged into your smart plug
and then the Google Assistant will learn
to treat it like a certain type of smart
device.
So for example if you classify a smart
plug as a light
it'll turn on and off with the other
lights that you have in your home
when you tell the Google Assistant to
turn on or off your lights.
To add your device type to a smart
switch tap the smart switch in the
Google Home app
then click the gear icon to go into that
device's settings,
and then click device type. There you'll
see all the different device types you
can choose from like air conditioner,
humidifiers, a tv,
etc. Click next where you'll be able to
edit the name
and then click save. When you back out of
the devices page,
the image for it in the Google Home app
will likely have changed to reflect the
new device type that you chose.
Next up let's talk games Google has
recently expanded the number of games
you can play through its devices
and on assistant smart displays. It's
actually now giving you
a card view where you can scroll through
all of the different games that you can
potentially play on the device,
making it easier to discern which one
you actually want to go for
and i have to admit some of these games
are actually pretty fun, especially in
my humble opinion the trivia game, and
especially
movie quiz, that one is definitely
addicting.
To see the games tell Google to show me
some games i can play.
Some games you can play are song quiz
are you feeling lucky trivia,
guess the drawing, riddle of the day,
puzzle of the day,
dwarf mine, jeopardy, dustin from stranger things,
animal trivia, and movie quiz. Now some of
these games are just using
audio while others have cute visuals
like the feeling lucky trivia game.
Let's take a look at a few of these
games in more detail now one of my
favorites is movie quiz where you hear
clips from movies and have to guess what
movie it is. It supports up to four
players but you can play by yourself as
well and when you play by yourself movie
quiz will actually match you with an
opponent from around the world.
You can also choose to guess movies from
a specific decade
or you can play in expert mode which
will mix up clips from all decades.
Song quiz is very similar to movie quiz
except you'll need to say the song
title as well as the artist in order to
get full points.
Jeopardy works in a very similar way to
the actual game show. You're asked
questions from various categories and
yes,
you do have to answer in the form of a
question, just like on the show. Here's an
example:
Announcer: "This is Jeopardy,
and now here is the host of Jeopardy
Alex Trebek." Alex: "Thanks johnny
and welcome, time to get started."
Google Assistant: "Our next jeopardy category is german
animal names
words for nose and corn combine to make
nashorn
the german name of this animal."  Josh: "What is an elephant???..."
Google Assistant: "No that's incorrect, the correct response was what is the rhinoceros."
Lastly the i'm feeling lucky trivia game
made by Google
gives you really cute animations during
this game so i definitely recommend
playing it on a Google Assistant display.
The assistant will give players cute
nicknames and then the answers you have
to give vary from true or false,
questions, to numbers
etc, here's an example.  Google Assistant: For this game i'll
call you freestyle.
Moving swiftly along the category is
language
which of these english words comes from
malay? Mustard,
tsunami, bamboo, or orchid?
Josh: "bamboo."
Google: "Much obliged, bamboo, fabulous!
Bamboo came to english through dutch
explorers who picked up the word from
malaysia and indonesia."
Google Assistant: "You got two out of five correct,
now present yourself to the great
factoid
and accept your imaginary prize...
you got a participation trophy,
the great factoid is strict but fair."
Alright, now the last thing i'm going to
mention is that Google a while back made
a change where by default the Google
Assistant would not
save audio recordings from when it heard
the trigger word.
However if you want it to save audio
recordings as well as help improve the
Google Assistant,
you can opt in by going into your Google
account and under activity controls
make sure include audio recordings is
selected,
this will allow you to access the audio
recordings that Google recorded when it
heard the trigger word but do note if
you enable this feature,
it does also allow human reviewers to go
in and review these audio recordings
to help improve the Google Assistant.
Alright well that's it for the updates
now Google is supposed to release new
hardware later this fall
including a new Google Nest speaker as
well as a new Chromecast tv with a
remote
and of course the upcoming Pixel 5 and
Pixel 4a 5G,
so make sure you're subscribed to the
channel for all the latest on Google
Assistant device hardware
as well as Google Assistant feature
updates and
if you like this video and found it
helpful make sure you hit that thumbs up
button below.
For 6 Months Later, I'm Josh Teder,
thanks for watching.
