Assignable reminders come to Google Assistant and smart home devices

Google has announced that you can now assign reminders for specific people on Google Home devices or using the Google Assistant software on other devices. The company says this will work if you have a Google family group set up or if individual Google accounts are all linked to the same smart display or speaker running Google Assistant.

You can use your voice to ask Google to remind somebody, or yourself, of time and location specific things, from good luck messages to reminders to pay bills or reminders that only pop up on people’s phones when they go to a certain area or place.

This means you could say “Hey Google, reminder Dan to get bananas when he goes to Tesco”, and Dan’s phone would ping when Google sees Dan goes into a Tesco. Cool maybe, but also, you could just call or text Dan. Why put up a wall between you and Dan? Eh Google?

Of course these features rely on you linking your specific voice matched Google accounts to a device or family group and you having location services turned on for Google to access. If you’re all in on the Google Home and Assistant features, it’s another neat trick to add to your roster.

But we suspect most people would prefer to receive a good luck text of call from their mum rather than a robot voice passing on the message she barked at the smart speaker before she rushed off to Pilates.