Ask Google’s voice assistant to chain things together by setting up custom routines.
On a daily basis, using Google Assistant from a smartphone or a Google Home speaker very often comes down to asking, one after the other, several orders.
But Google’s intelligent assistant can do much more, in particular through routines, simple commands which, once stated after the traditional “Ok Google”, are sufficient to initiate the execution of several successive tasks.
These routines can be invoked both to obtain information from the Google Assistant and to launch actions on your connected devices compatible with Google Home, the application allowing you to manage connected devices.
You will therefore be able to manage and create new routines both from the Google Assistant application and from the Google Home application.
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- Download Google Assistant for iPhone (Free)
To understand how routines work, Google Assistant offers several, ready to use. These can also be customized, according to your needs and preferences, a great way to understand how they work.
1. Access the routines
To access Routines from the Google Home application, press the icon appearing on your profile at the bottom right, enter Settings, and go to the Assistant tab.
From the Google Assistant application, access to Routines is done by clicking on your profile picture. Then go to Settings, and go to the Assistant tab.
2. Customize an existing routine
To discover the interest of the routines, Google offers several, ready to use, that it is possible to customize. Take for example the first command, Hello.
It will then suffice to say “OK Google, Hello”, so that our smartphone gives the weather forecast for the day, displays the program for the day, gives the Reminders of the day, before reading the latest news.
The order of the current operations, displayed after The Wizard must, can be modified by pressing the dedicated button, then by going up in the order of the list, the actions of the routine.
As regards the actions launched subsequently, pressing the icon representing a toothed wheel will allow you to customize the preferences. In our case, the Bonjour command should start listening to News.
By entering the parameters of this command, it is possible to select new news sources, but also to delete existing ones.
3. Create a custom routine
To create a routine from scratch, press the + button. The routine is divided into three steps: When…, The Google Assistant should…, and And then launch…
In step When, press Add commands, and enter the text of the command that you will have to recite after OK Google to run the routine.
Press Ok to validate the command and return to the routine configuration by pressing the arrow to return to the previous page. Logically, When… should be followed by the words I say, accompanied by the command to be recited.
Then tap Add action. Here, you must enter the action, or the order to which Google Assistant must respond. You can find examples of possible actions by tapping Select popular actions.
These commands, which may only concern actions specific to Google Assistant, can also be attached directly to a connected device installed in your home: connected television, multimedia box, lights, thermostats, connected sockets, security system, household appliances, etc. . with controls specific to each device.
They appear, in principle, automatically when a Google Home compatible device is connected to your network. Don’t forget to press Add to validate your action.
Finally, you can, if you wish, Launch multimedia content: Music, News, Radio, Sounds to fall asleep, etc. To do this, tap Add multimedia content. You can customize the broadcast sources by pressing the icon featuring a toothed wheel.
When your routine is complete, don’t forget to save it by pressing the validation checkmark at the top right of the window.
4. Perform your routine
To verify that your Google Assistant routine is working correctly, say Ok Google followed by the command to start your routine, defined previously.
The various actions previously configured in the routine should then all be executed one after the other.
You can, by showing a little imagination, create complex routines performing several actions, featuring all your connected objects, to respond to very specific scenarios.