New feature will keep Assistant's noise levels in check
There are lots of things we love about our smart assistants, but they really don’t understand how volume works. “Ok Google, turn off the lights,” we’ll sometimes whisper to our smart speaker at night. “TURNING OFF LIGHTS,” it bellows back, all because we forgot to adjust the volume. But Google is working on a fix.
As first spotted by 9to5Google, a ‘Custom TTS Volume’ has shown up in the latest version of the Google Home iOS app, under the equalizer settings. TTS stands for Text-To-Speech, and the slider seems to let you adjust the Assistant’s responses relative to what else is playing out of your speaker(s).
Read this: Google Home tips and tricks
You can’t set the specific volume of the Assistant, but the option will let you “duck” or boost the volume accordingly, making it easier to hear what it’s saying while not being deafened by the weather forecast.
The feature is a little buggy right now and isn’t yet available on Android – so it’s probably not intended for public consumption. But it appears a rollout for Google Home speakers and smart displays is imminent. We’re trying it out ourselves and have asked Google for more information, and we’ll update this story when we know more.
Amazon sort-of solved the “indoor voice” problem with Alexa’s Whisper Mode, but to use it you need to whisper to the speaker, which is not always convenient. You can make the Google Assistant whisper too, but it requires putting it into Night Mode – which is a less elegant solution.
