Google recently rolled out an update on Google Assistant that enables users to schedule lights on and off timings. Anyone who has a Google Home and smart lights know the drill. This feature allows users to schedule a smart home command to trigger at a later time. Previously, Google Assistant has been able to turn lights on/off for a while, but it could only do so immediately.
Notably, users can schedule the command to be triggered by specifying a time or duration. For example: “Hey Google, turn on the lights in five minutes” or “Hey Google, turn on the lights at 7 AM.”
According to Google, the commands can be scheduled for the current day or another day within the next seven-day period. “Hey Google, turn on my coffee maker at 8 AM tomorrow.” In this case, if the user doesn’t provide an exact time, Google returns an error.
You can also ask Google to turn the lights on or off at sunset or sunrise, for which it will confirm the exact time at which it will perform the action. For example, you can say “switch lamp on 15 minutes before Sunrise”. This is definitely a useful feature.
On the other hand, the search engine giant is reportedly beta testing a new app called Task Mate with select Indian users, with the idea of awarding users money for performing certain tasks.