Google Pixel News: Google Assistant Arrives On Pixel To Control Smart Home Devices

Feb 10, 2017 09:39 AM EST

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – OCTOBER 04: Brian Rakowski, VP Product Management at Google Inc., holds a Google Pixel phone during an event to introduce the phone and other Google products on October 4, 2016 in San Francisco, California. Google is making the jump into the mobile device market in an attempt to challenge the Apple iPhone in the premium smartphone category. (Photo : Ramin Talaie/Getty Images for Stringer)

Google is planning to roll out new voice controlled assistant in its Pixel smartphones. This would help users control their smart home appliances straight from the Google Assistant.

As The Verge reported, operating gadgets and home appliances have become simpler through the Google Assistant. In fact, earlier if users asked Pixel to turn on lights or turn off kitchen light, it wouldn’t get any response. But thankfully, through the latest update, Pixel users can make use of the device in so many ways.

The search engine giant has named it Home Control and it uses voice commands to control several products such as Samsung Smart Things, Phillips Hue, Nest and Belkin’s WeMo. Simply centralizing the devices to Google Assistant, users no longer need to look for individual apps or for that matter invest in Google Home. The users can easily find the controls under Google Assistant and finally Home Control tab.

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The Home Control tab would appear in Google Assistant settings where the user can view a list of all the paired devices as well as set up space on the network. Interestingly, users can also add devices just like they would on the Google Home. According to Digital Trends, some of these features would be exclusive to certain devices only. For instance, the emoji game would be available on Allo text based Google Assistant.

Adding the Home Control option is quite a welcoming change as tech experts feel. The Pixel device would now be able to Apple iPhone backed HomeKit. It already allowed Siri to control several smart home appliances for some time. Now, it is a step from Google to implement smart home integration. It would be interesting to see if the feature becomes available to non Pixel devices.

In fact, as more users opt for smart home products, the more ways users need to find to control the appliances. Also, the Google Pixel’s ability to control the smart home devices have eliminated the need of buying Google Home for Pixel smartphone users.

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