The search engine giant's smart speaker Google Home, which will celebrate its first anniversary next month, has received a much-needed update that allows users to sync multiple accounts.
Ever since the launch of Google Home, it has garnered huge response in the US (November 2016) and Europe (in April 2017 in UK). Everyone loved the nifty compact design form, and the user experience was a delight. It is always ready with witty reply for all queries and is intuitive enough to recommend hotels nearby, notify time to leave for office early to escape from traffic jam, remind the owner of upcoming doctor's appointment or dish out flight ticket details for a trip. And yet, it had one disadvantage: Google Home was able to recognise only one voice and it never responded to other family members who shared the same house.
Now, this issue has been fixed with the latest software update and will give Google Home an edge over the rival, Amazon Alexa, which cannot recognise different voices and give personalised notifications.
"This feature will start rolling out today for Google Home users in the US, but will expand to the UK in the coming months," Yury Pinsky, product manager, Google Assistant, said.
Here's how to add new user accounts to Google Home in four simple steps:
[Note: Make sure you update your Google Home smartphone app. If not, you can go to Google Play store, open the Google Home and once there, you can find the UPDATE button on the left side, click it to upgrade the app].
Once updated, open the Google Home, you will get a new notification message: "Multi-user is now available". Click on it to proceed to add new accounts.
If you didn't get the aforementioned pop-up message, here's what you need to do:
Step 1: Click the icon, which depicts 'TV with Speaker' on the top right corner
Step 2: Select Settings >> Devices > Settings > More > Shared Devices>> tap '+' sign to begin multi-user set-up
Step 3: Then, Google will commence voice-test and ask the user to say 'OK Google' and 'Hey, Google' twice for each phrase.
Step 4: Once done, Tap Continue, then click Invite if he/she wants to sync additional members' accounts of the family to the Google Home. [Repeat the procedure from Step 3.]
[Note: All users should have Google Home app on their phone to connect to the smart speaker and also sync their music accounts, Netflix or any other favourite apps if they prefer to connect to Google Home for 'My Day' personalised announcement/notifications in the morning]
How will Google Home know who is speaking to it?
When the user connects his/her account on Google Home, it asks them to say the launch phrase: "Ok Google" or "Hey Google", two times each. Those phrases are then analysed by a neural network algorithm of Google Assistant software, which can detect certain characteristics of a person's voice. From that point on, any time you say "Ok Google" or "Hey Google" to your Google Home, the neural network will compare the sound of your voice to its previous analysis to understand who it is speaking to. Google claims that this comparison takes place only on the device and happens in a matter of milliseconds.
