Google Assistant can now support multiple users – with up to six people able to connect their accounts to one Google Home device.
Through the latest version of the Google Home app, users can find a card that says ‘multi-user is available’. By clicking this, or searching through connected devices, users can link their account to their Google Home device. Users then have to ‘teach’ their Assistant to understand their voice by saying the phrases ‘OK Google’ and ‘Hey Google’ twice each. The phrases are then analysed to find certain characteristics in the person’s voice. Following this, any time the user says ‘Ok Google’ or ‘Hey Google’, the Assistant will compare the sound of their voice to the previous recordings and understand who is speaking to it.
“Now when I ask my Google Assistant for help, it can distinguish my voice from my wife’s and I can hear my own personal playlists, my own commute time, my own schedule and more,” said Yury Pinsky, product manager at Google Assistant, in a blog post.
“Your Assistant should be personal to you—and now it is. From music to news, your Google Assistant on Google Home is ready to answer your questions and help you get more done.”
Despite Google Home’s new ability to identify multiple users, it is still incapable of creating reminders or adding events to calendars – a feature that many would consider to be highly important. Instead, when asked to create a reminder, Google Home says, as it did before, “Sorry, create reminder is not yet supported.”