

- #Google voice actions iphone for free#
- #Google voice actions iphone for android#
- #Google voice actions iphone android#
- #Google voice actions iphone download#
When you launch it, either via a shortcut on your Home screen or by swiping up from the Home key, it offers a small greeting and instantly begins to listen for commands.
#Google voice actions iphone for free#
However, there are some things it cannot do, and for those you have Utter, a voice recognition app-currently in beta and available for free on the Google Play Store-that takes a different approach to the task.ĭeveloped by Ben Randall from Birmingham, UK, Utter has no user interface for the actual voice assistant functionality. Next page: Meet Utter and take things to the next level For the voice control enthusiast, it truly is one of the greatest features of Android. You can now use Google Now to do a host of things: perform web searches, ask general knowledge questions, perform translations, create alarms, events and reminders, call and text contacts, find out the weather, look up addresses and get directions, perform conversions and calculations, get sports updates, check your flight status, open web URLs and listen to music, among other things.
#Google voice actions iphone download#
Select your language and download the “high quality” voice for it if it is available. Tap on the Settings button next to “Google Text-to-speech engine” and then on “Install voice data”. Go into the Settings app on your phone and navigate to ‘Language & input » Text-to-speech output’. You need your voice assistant to sound human, and there’s some setup involved in getting there. Voice recognition is only one of the two important parts of a virtual assistant the other is text-to-speech. Also ensure that the “Show updates from Google Now” feature is enabled under Notifications, if you’d like to use its excellent Reminders feature. Most importantly, make sure that you turn on the “Contact recognition” feature if you’d like to use Google Now to be able to call and text your contacts using voice instructions. Here, I prefer to keep “Google location settings” turned on, with both the Location History and Location Reporting features enabled. Go back to the main settings screen and select “Accounts & privacy”. The main thing I want you to do here is go into the “Offline speech recognition” settings and ensure that your language is installed (if it is supported). Make sure Google Now is turned on and then tap on the Voice option. Launch Google Now on your phone and tap on the Menu button in the bottom-right corner of the screen (you may have to scroll down to get to it). Optimizing Google Nowīefore we download the third-party app, let’s go over a few settings for Google Now that make the voice control experience better on Android.
#Google voice actions iphone android#
I therefore recommend that you follow along on your Android device as you read this guide. Note: This is a hands-on article that goes into details about precisely which settings you need to change on your device to arrive at an optimal configuration.
#Google voice actions iphone for android#
In this article, I’ll discuss in depth the only third-party app I’ve found for Android that actually works alongside Google Now instead of trying to replace it, and complements its features with many of its own. Mostly free, these competitors try to best Google’s efforts in their own unique ways, but they all tend to fall short of the task. In my quest to improve the voice recognition features of Android, I have tried a majority of (if not all) the third-party virtual assistants available on the Play Store. If you have three lights in one room, it’s much easier to say “Turn off the living room” than having to tell it to turn off each light in turn.However, there are some areas where Google Now falls short of the target set by Siri, and others still where both Google Now and Siri could stand to learn from smaller challengers.

Keeping devices grouped in rooms will not only keep your Google Assistant app better organized but will make working with those devices easier. If you have grouped devices in a room labeled “bedroom” you can say “Hey Google, turn off the bedroom” or “turn off the bedroom lights” even when the Google Home is located elsewhere in the house.

Grouping your devices in rooms means you can control those rooms by referring to them. This of course only makes sense to do if the lights and Google home are physically located in the same room. When a Google Home is associated with the same room as smart lights then you can say, “Hey Google, Turn on the lights” to turn them on. If you have a Google Home device, adding it to the same room will give you easier control of those lights. Tap the “Custom Room” option, provide a label you like, and then tap “Next.” If you don’t see a room label you like, scroll to the bottom of the room choices.
