- Quick Phrases allow you to perform Google Assistant tasks without using the “Ok / Hey Google” hotword.
- This evolving feature lets you set alarms, control your music, and more.
- It is still unclear when Quick Phrases will be introduced or which devices will support it.
You may soon no longer need to use Ok / Hey Google to get the Google Assistant to do certain tasks on your phone and smart home devices. 9to5Google unearthed more details on the codenamed “guacamole” feature that the release first spotted in April. Google could call this new feature Quick Phrases.
This includes the ability to set or cancel alarms, control your music, set reminders, ask about the weather, set and control timers and much more. Together with “Ok Google”, your phone will also listen to these activation phrases. Without further details on how Google will “listen” to these phrases and what it does with that data, it might be too early to ring the alarm bells. However, it is definitely an additional problem for a company that is constantly beating in the privacy space.
Related: What are Google Assistant Routines and how do you set them up?
Google already made it available in July Android authority with further information on the functionality of hotword recognition and audio processing. Google mentioned that “if activation is not detected, these audio snippets will not be sent or saved to Google”.
Fast phrases likely work the same way. But that still opens up the possibility of collecting a lot more data than before due to overlap with everyday conversations. I’m just as likely to say “pause music” to someone as I would to my phone or smart speaker.
Of course, it’s not all doom and darkness. Yet. The feature is still under development and it is not clear when it will be released or which devices will support it. Although it looks like Google is going to be dropping just that with the upcoming Pixel 6. Even then, you have complete freedom not to enable this feature. You can also choose which terms to use. And if you don’t want to use the Google Assistant at all, you can easily turn it off.
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