Google Assistant gains more control over smart home devices

Google Assistant gets Custom Device Actions. These are voice commands that can be programmed by device makers, so that the Google assistant within the app gets more control over the various functions of that device.

Google gives as an example a specific program of a washing machine. Where it is still necessary to navigate from the assistant with a voice command to the application of the washing machine maker, with Custom Device Actions within the Assistant environment the command can be given directly for the specific washing program. Until now, the options for users staying within Assistant have been limited to little more than “on” and “off”.

According to Engadget, LG has already done some work to make use of Custom Device Actions. In any case, an LG refrigerator can be adjusted smarter, for example by controlling the temperature with the assistant. It is not yet clear which LG devices are involved.

In addition, Google introduces further options when it comes to media playback. Where the assistant could already play music and podcasts, it is now also possible to start meditation sessions with the Calm app, for example, by giving the command ‘talk to Calm’. In the US, users can listen to interviews from The Daily Show. The user also gets a degree of control over the playback of these media: the audio fragments can be paused and played again from the beginning.

Finally, in the future, users will also be able to subscribe to notifications from various content providers. For example, it should soon be possible to receive the daily Forbes quote of the day, or an alert when a share price reaches a certain threshold value. Also for these options it should no longer be necessary to have additional apps installed.