A quick update before the holidays
The holidays are fast approaching, and Google is taking the time to boost up Assistant and Smart Displays before they fill the stockings of smart home newbies and regulars the world over.
The big new addition is Broadcast replies. You can already use the Google Home devices in your home as an intercom system to announce things like dinner, and now it’s going to work as a two-way system intercom system. So when one person uses it to announce dinner, another will be able to respond that they’re on the way.
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If you’ve got a Smart Display, there’ll be a “Reply” button on the display that you can use. When you respond to a Broadcast, the response will be routed to the phone of person who made the Broadcast. They’ll also get a transcription they can read. Another big new Smart Display feature is a new cooking card called Recommended Recipes.
Recommended Recipes uses your search history to recommend new recipes to you. They’ll be customized throughout the day and also take the season into account. So yeah, you’ll get all the pumpkin spice recipes you can handle during the fall. When you find a recipe you like, you can save it to the new My Cookbook. Recommended Recipes aren’t the only new personalized feature for Smart Displays, there’s also a new Top Stories card that pulls in recommended news stories from Google News.
Google is also beefing up the Home View feature on Smart Displays. You’ll now be able to control LG and Panasonic TVs. You’ll also be able to control Roku streaming sticks and compatible set-top boxes.
Finally, Google is making Assistant more family friendly, adding interactive alarms from Nickelodeon and Lego in an attempt to make waking up for school a little more fun. The interactive alarms include music and jokes that kids may like.
All of these new features will roll out to Google Home and Smart Displays over the next couple of weeks.
