Google Assistant is now getting wiser with a new feature that would help users to use the voice assistant to schedule their smart lights/bulbs according to the time or duration they specify.
Well, Google Assistant is one of the smartest virtual assistants around. Over the years, it has gained several new and much-needed features that really sets Google Assistant apart from the likes of Amazon Alexa, Apple’s Siri, etc.
It is not a new thing to switch on or off your smart lights using Google Assistant. In fact, you can make use of the Google Assistant to operate any of your smart home devices.
However, for smart lights/bulbs, these commands were limited to immediate actions. Meaning that you could either turn on or turn off your smart lights. That’s it!
Today, as reported by Android Police and a few Redditors, Google is adding the schedule option to its voice assistant. This allows the users to ask Google Assistant to turn their smart lights on or off at a particular time.
Users can ask Google Assistant to turn the lights on or off in five minutes. All you have to do is say, “Hey Google, turn on the lights in five minutes.” You can also ask the assistant to turn the lights on or off at a specific time as well.
This new feature can be operated via Google’s Schedule Actions feature
Besides, users can also set the times for the current day or any other day over the next week. For example, you can use the command, “Hey Google, turn on my lights at 8 AM tomorrow.” This will automatically turn on the lights at the said time period.
Note that, there are some limitations to these commands. As per Android Police, Google Assistant does not respond to commands when you simply ask it to turn on the lights “tomorrow” without mentioning the exact time.
You have to specify the exact time at which you want the assistant to turn on the lights to perform the task. Another great thing mentioned in the official Google documentation is that you can cancel a scheduled action.
This gives you peace of mind, that if the assistant misunderstood your command, you can ask it to cancel the scheduled action.
Users need to say, “Hey Google, cancel my scheduled Actions” to cancel a scheduled task. Moreover, if you want to cancel multiple tasks, then Google Assistant will ask which task you would like to cancel before taking the action.
The Google Assistant schedule actions feature could come in very handy in today’s pandemic scenario when everyone is working from home. You can ask the assistant to turn off the lights right at the time when you are done with your day’s work.