Routines make it easy to accomplish a bunch of actions with just a single keyword on Google Assistant devices. Now, though, Google is making these even more accessible by allowing Android users to put Google Assistant routines on their homescreens.
Update 12/9: As of this morning, it seems that Google Assistant routine shortcuts on the homescreen are rolling out more widely. While the feature may not appear for all users, it does show up now when editing a routine other than the new “Home/Away” routines. Presets or fully custom routines can be quickly added to the homescreen as pictured below.
Our original coverage follows:
While the feature isn’t rolling out widely just yet, a couple of users have reported that the Google Home app is now showing support for adding a shortcut to the homescreen on any Assistant routine. This button appears when editing any routine, and it apparently has a small pop-up, pictured below, when it appears for the first time.
In its most recent redesign, Google moved the ability to trigger routines from the main set of action buttons in the Home app to a larger menu, making it quite a bit more cumbersome to access them. Now, it seems like that might be paying off by making routines infinitely easier to access through shortcuts on the homescreen.
When added to the homescreen, Google Assistant routines appear with the icon seen in the app and the name. For presets such as “Good Morning” and “Bedtime,” the icon and name are predefined, though it seems like custom routines will have the same icon with different names.
More on Google Assistant:
- Google Assistant ‘spoken notifications’ now available on all wired headphones
- Hands-on: Google Assistant works better on Fitbit than most Wear OS watches
- Google Home 2.31 redesigns Media controls, can trigger Routines again
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