Google announced a new update to Google Wifi today that essentially offers the user a greater degree of control over when the internet is operational. While most tend to be looking for ways to increase their interest connection, this update brings with it the ability to completely shut off the internet altogether or more accurately, pause your internet connection temporarily.
The new feature is Scheduled Pause and as the name suggests, offers the ability to set times when Google Wifi will automatically shut down the connection and keep it inactive until the scheduled resume times are reached. ‘Bedtime’ was used by Google in the main announcement as one of the key examples, highlighting that Scheduled Pause can be used by Google Wifi owners as an additional motivational way to put down devices and get a good night’s sleep – without being distracted or interrupted.
However, bedtime in general is just one of the basic examples of what the feature can do. As google also explains that the new Scheduled Pause feature is far more customizable and detailed than simply shutting everyone out at bedtime. Instead, users will be able to group like-devices under one label and then set up a specific scheduled pausing for that group of devices. Again, as Google illustrates, this could then be used to set up an internet deactivation time for younger children that is different to the time for the parents. Likewise, the new feature can be used to invoke downtime periods at other times. Another example being a ‘homework’ period where every day at the same time the internet cannot be accessed by devices accessible to the homework-doer. So in short this is a multi-use feature which can be as customized as the user wants, with all of the settings and timings controllable through the corresponding Google Wifi app. The app has already been updated on the Google Play Store to reflect the new feature and so if you already have the app installed, you should see the update arriving soon enough via an OTA update. In the meantime though, you can see an example of how the new feature works in the image provided by Google below.