The Google Assistant has just added a new skill, programmable actions . Thanks to these new options, the use of said voice assistant improves and opens up a new range of possibilities. So we tell you what exactly they are and some examples so you can take advantage of this Google Assistant improvement.
What are Google Assistant programmable actions
Programmable actions are, as their name suggests and you can imagine for yourself, a set of orders that are executed at a specific time that is not the current one . That is, instead of telling Google Assistant to do something and that implies doing it now, you can ask the same thing but to do it within X minutes, hours or at the exact time you want.
This, although at the moment it may not seem very useful to you, it completely changes the way you interact with both the Google assistant and with the rest of the devices that you may have connected in your smart home.
How to use programmable actions
When using the new Google Assistant programmable actions, the only thing you have to be clear about is what you want and when you want to do something. From there, knowing the particularities that the system currently offers is more than enough.
To begin with, what you have to know is that you can clearly and precisely ask him when he wants him to take an action . That is, you can program the lights in the living room to turn on for Tuesday at ten at night and turn them off at eleven thirty.
That is if we want absolute precision, but expressions that give a little more margin can also be used. For example, you can ask yourself to turn on the lights at sunrise or sunset and Assistant will know exactly what you mean.
You can even go one step further and tell it to take this action only for a certain amount of time . So you can take advantage of keeping the lights on for only 5 minutes, the time necessary to go for something to eat while watching a movie or similar things. You just have to say “Ok Google, turn off the lights in 5 minutes.”
A new interaction option to experiment
The new programmable actions are a very interesting option to experiment with to see how you can take advantage of them in your day-to-day life. Although it must also be said that they still need to improve some aspects or details such as the possibility of eliminating a schedule that is not yet available. So if you have programmed something and you regret it, you will have to create a counter-programming. Although surely this is a detail that is resolved soon.
For the rest, just as you can set an alarm or timer, reminders and make requests that are executed instantly, with this new option that integrates Google’s voice assistant, the way in which you interact with connected home devices changes. . It is true that first you will have to see how to take advantage of them, but it can be very useful to dispense with certain applications that allow you to program these actions through a traditional graphical interface. Because since we are using a voice assistant, what less than to resort only to the use of the voice.
