Frantically searching around for your smartphone before leaving the house is annoying and often panic-inducing. “Well it’s obviously lost” we conclude, whenever our phone is more than five feet away.
Thankfully, Google Home owners can be spared that rigmarole of digging up sofa cushions with a new feature that’ll help users find their phones… even if it’s on silent.
As teased during the Made by Google event earlier this week, Google has rolled out an update for the Home range.
Related: Google Home Max
Now users can ask the smart speaker to “ring my phone” or “where’s my phone?” and it’ll start ringing (via 9to5Google).
As this command overrides the volume settings, the phone will begin ring even if Do Not Disturb mode is enabled.
Google says the command can also be used for more than one handset, with the Google Assistant ringing the phones one after t’other.
Given Home now supports individual profiles you won’t have to worry about the Assistant calling your partner’s phone either.
Although the feature still works, it’s not so useful for iOS users. When iPhone owners issue the command, Home actually makes a phone call from the device, meaning it’ll need to be audible.
New models afoot
Google significantly boosted the Home speaker line up this week, adding the Google Home Mini and the Google Home Max,
The pebble-shaped Mini will compete with the Amazon Echo Dot, while the premium Max will be more likely to bother Apple’s HomePod and the new Sonos One with Alexa.
Will you be purchasing one of the new Google Home models? Share your thoughts with us @TrustedReviews on Twitter.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
