Last October, it was reported that Google Assistant can be summoned with “Hey Google,” but it was only available to some users. Now, it appears Google is widely rolling out the new hotword to more phones.
We first noticed this when we received a notification on our Android phones requiring us to retrain our voice command for Google Assistant. On top of the original “OK Google” phrase, there’s a new “Hey Google” voice command now too.
Essentially, this new update allows users to summon Google Assistant with “Hey Google” on their smartphones; only Google Home products were able to recognise this phrase in the past. Collectively, there are now two wake-up commands for Google’s digital assistant.
“Hey Google” definitely sounds more natural to say than the original “OK Google” phrase, and we reckon users will appreciate this new addition.
If you haven’t seen the notification yet, open up the Google app and head on to Settings > Voice to retrain your voice model; you should see the new phrase if you’ve received the update. Note that this is still a gradual roll out – some of our colleagues are still stuck with “OK Google.”
