Tag Archives: Google Assistant

Google Smart Home Developer Summit – New tools and features to build, innovate, and grow with Google

Posted by Michele Turner, Senior Director of Product for Google’s Smart Home Ecosystem

Google Smart Home Developer Summit

Earlier this year at Google I/O, we told you that our goal is to make Google the best place for smart home developers like you to build, innovate, and grow. Today, I'm excited to show you all the new ways we're improving the tools and opportunities you'll have to build you best experiences with Google, by:

  • Expanding our platform and tools to make it easier for you to learn and build devices that do more with Google.
  • Providing a site where you can preview the new tools that are coming over the next year to help you build your devices, apps, and integrations.
  • Supporting Matter & Thread across our entire ecosystem, including Nest and Android.
  • Developing more automation capabilities, including the ability to build suggested routines for your users.
  • Helping you differentiate with Google and connect to more users.

(re) Introducing “Google Home”

Our journey as an ecosystem started five years ago with the Google Home speaker and Google Assistant. It has grown into a powerful platform, with support for new smart speakers and displays, Android, Nest, and the Google Home app. It also includes an ecosystem of tens of thousands of devices made by partners and developers like you, enabling Google users to engage with over 200 million devices, and making the smart home more than the sum of its parts.

We’re bringing all of this together, and announcing a new, but familiar name, for our entire smart home platform and developer program, that helps users and developers do more with Google – Google Home. By bringing our platform and tools under the same roof, it gives us a simpler way to show you why and how integrating your devices with Google Home makes them more accessible and helpful across the Google ecosystem.

New Google Home Developer Center

Launching early next year, you’ll have access to our new Google Home Developer Center that will have everything you need to learn and build smart home devices, applications, and automations with Google. It’s a total redesign of our developer site and console, focused on major upgrades to navigation, and new self-serve tools for both developers and their business teams.

The developer center will have tools for each step of development, deployment, and analytics, including:

  • Building Matter devices
  • Customizing setup of your devices in Android and the Google Home app
  • Creating automations and routines
  • Building Android apps with Matter
  • Testing and certification
  • New tools for analytics & performance monitoring
image of Smart Home Developer Center

Quickly build and integrate with Matter

One of the most important new capabilities we’re bringing to our developers is the ability to quickly build and integrate Matter devices. We’re continuing to collaborate with other leading and innovative companies from across the industry to develop Matter — the new, universal, open smart home application protocol that makes it easy to build, buy, and set up smart home devices with any Matter ecosystem or app. We’re also adding Matter as a powerful new way to connect your devices to Google Home and your Android apps.

To make sure users are ready for your Matter devices, we’ll update Nest and Android devices with Matter support, following the launch of the new standards. That means when you build devices with Matter, they can be easily set up and controlled by millions of users everywhere they interact with Google, including Nest speakers and displays, the Google Assistant, and of course Android devices. To make sure you’re ready to build your best Matter-enabled experiences with Google, we’re adding support for Matter in the Google Home Developer Center, and rolling out new tools for Matter development across Google Home and Android, including two new SDKs.

New Google Home Device SDK for Matter devices

The first is the Google Home Device SDK — the fastest way to develop Matter devices, enabling seamless setup, control, and interoperability.

The open source Matter specification and SDK will ensure everyone is starting from the same code base. But building innovative, quality experiences goes beyond sharing the same connectivity protocol. The Google Home Device SDK complements the open-source libraries and simplifies building Matter devices to work seamlessly with Google, including configuring your device with Assistant, improving quality with logging, and adding tools to interact and test with Google devices. This helps you build a more responsive, reliable end-to-end experience for users. We’ll also be adding new capabilities that allow you to innovate with the SDK.

To make your development even easier, we’re also delivering the Google Home IDE to build your smart home devices and connect them to Google in a familiar way. For developers using Visual Studio Code to develop smart home devices, you can easily leverage our tools in that environment by installing the new Google Home IDE, which complements your existing extensions and tools in this popular editor.

Visual studio code

Native Android Support via Google Play Services and a new Google Home Mobile SDK

Mobile devices are an important smart home tool for users, and are critical to how users set up, manage, and control the devices in their home. To make app experiences more seamless, and help your users experience the magic of your device as quickly as possible, we’re building Matter directly into Android, and announcing support for Matter through Google Play services.

One of the key benefits this enables is seamless Matter device setup flows in Android, letting users connect new Matter devices over WiFi and Thread as easily as a new pair of headphones. You’ll be able to customize that setup flow with branding and device descriptions. With just a few taps, users will be able to link your devices to your app, the Google Home app, and other Matter apps they’ve installed. Of course, when users connect your device to Google, it automatically shows up in the Google Home app, on Android controls for smart home devices, and is controllable with the Google Assistant on Android, without additional development.

We’re also creating new tools to accelerate your development with the Google Play services Matter APIs, using the new Google Home Mobile SDK. Building a Matter-native app on Android lets users link their smart home devices to your app during the setup process, or later in their journey, with a few easy taps - with no need for account linking.

We’re already well underway building Matter integrations with many of the leaders in the smart home industry, and helping their Matter devices do more with Google, with many more to follow.

Inspire engagement with Suggested Routines

Whether via Matter or existing integration paths, being able to easily and reliably connect your devices to Google helps users build their smart homes. For developers, automations allow users to do more with your devices.

We want to help you easily combine them with other devices into coordinated routines, and to use context and triggers to increase their usefulness and engagement with the help of Google’s intelligence. So in our new Developer Center, we’ll enable you to create your own suggested routines that users can easily discover directly in the Google Home app. Your routines can carry your brand, suggest new ways for users to engage with your devices, and enhance them by coordinating them with other devices and context signals in the home.

Do more with Google Home

This is just the start of new ways we’re enabling your devices and brands to do more with Google Home. We know that for device makers, compatibility with Google Home is an important way to engage your users. But you want to make sure that your brand, products, and innovations are front and center with your users, to help them get the most from the experiences you’ve built.

That’s why all of the new tools we’re building help you to go beyond just compatibility with Google Home — and empower you to build your best, most engaging experiences with Google.

  • Customizable setup flows built into Android and Google Home that let your users experience the magic of your device with just a few taps right out of the box.
  • Native Matter apps on Android your users can discover and connect to in one streamlined setup flow.
  • Suggested routines to help your users do more with your devices.
  • New ways for users to discover and use your devices’ capabilities within the Google Home app.
  • the new Google Home Developer Center that brings developer and marketing tools together in one place, to help you and your team quickly bring all this to market.
Building for Matter

Support user growth and discovery

Of course, when you’ve built those great experiences, you want to tell everyone about them! For users that haven’t discovered your devices yet, we’re leveraging the power of Google to help users learn about your devices, and bring them home.

Earlier this year, we launched our new smart home directory on web and mobile that has seen great user engagement. This new site gives consumers an easy to use resource for discovering smart devices compatible with Google, and the experiences they can create with them, whether with a single device or using multiple devices together with automations and routines. We’re continuing to expand the site with more use cases, addressing the needs of both beginners and more sophisticated users looking to grow their smart homes and get more out of them.

We’ll have more to share with you over the coming months! Visit developers.googoe.com/home to read more about our announcements today and sign up for updates. We can’t wait to see what you build!

Say hello to better phone calls

Our smartphones can do amazing things: They can capture great photos, and they act as our alarm clock, our camera, our stereo, our library, our game console and more, all in one. But making phone calls, the original “feature” of our devices, has mostly remained the same for decades. When we call businesses to get something done, we’re often met with long, automated systems and endless elevator music. And as we go about our days, we’re often distracted by calls from unknown numbers, spammers and scammers. That’s why we are always seeking improvements with phone calls, and so today we’re excited to announce our latest advancements in calling assistance to make them better.

A better way to call businesses

Starting today on Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro devices in the U.S. our latest Phone app features, Wait Times and Direct My Call, make calling businesses easier. Before you even place your call to a toll-free business number, you’ll see the current and projected Wait Times for the rest of the week. That can help you decide whether you have time to call now, or plan when to call later to avoid long waits. Wait Times are inferred from call length data that is not linked to user identifiers.

When calling a business, see menu options on the screen for you to tap.

Once you ring the business, Direct My Call helps you get to the right place with less hassle. Google Assistant transcribes the automated message and menu options for you in real time and displays them on your screen for you to see and tap, so you don’t need to remember all the options. Direct My Call is powered by Google’s Duplex technology, which uses advanced speech recognition and language understanding models to determine when the business wants you to do something ​​– like select a number (“Press 1 for hours and locations”), say a word (“Say ‘representative’ to speak with one of our agents”) or input your account number.

When calling a business, see menu options on the screen for you to tap.

Direct My Call builds on previous features we've released that make calling businesses easier. Last year, we launched Hold For Me to help reduce the number of minutes you spend on hold. It already saves Pixel users in the United States over 1.5 million minutes each month, and it’s expanding to Pixel users in Australia, Canada and Japan in the coming months. Assistant is able to recognize when hold music is being played and understands the difference between a recorded message (like “Hello, thank you for waiting”) and a representative on the line thanks to Duplex technology, so that you can go back to your day and get notified when someone is ready to talk.

Press “Hold for me” and let Google Assistant wait on hold, then notify you when someone is ready to talk.

Know who’s calling you

Receiving calls from unknown numbers is a drag, and a majority of Americans choose not to answer them. They also report missing important calls they assume are spam. That’s why starting today, we’re improving Google’s extensive caller ID coverage of businesses with help from our users. You can now share information about unknown businesses that you call or answer (such as the type of business) and over time that information will be displayed on incoming calls to help others know more about who’s calling them. This information is not joined with any user identifiers. We expect this to double the number of businesses that have caller ID information – so you can answer more calls with confidence.

Caller ID identifies a type of business, in addition to the phone number.

If you do get a call from an unknown number, not to worry – Call Screen helps you find out who they are and why they’re calling before you pick up. Call Screen helps users in the U.S., Canada and Japan screen 37 million calls each month, and today we’re expanding manual Call Screen to Pixel users in the U.K., France, Germany, Australia, Ireland, Italy and Spain. Our latest on-device speech models make the transcriptions more accurate than ever on Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro thanks to Pixel’s new Google Tensor.

Google Assistant answers calls and transcribes the conversation.

Keeping your data safe

All audio transcriptions are processed on your device, which makes the experiences fast and also protects your privacy. No audio from the call will be shared with Google unless you explicitly decide to share it to help improve features. After the experience is over, like when you return to a call after Google Assistant was on hold for you or after Google Assistant screened a call, audio stops being processed altogether.

It’s time to rethink phone calls, and our latest calling assistance features are designed to save you time and make it easier than ever to connect with the right contact at the right time.

Happy 5th birthday, Google Assistant!

We launched Google Assistant five years ago — and back then, it sometimes felt a bit strange to ask our devices for help. Now, digital assistants are part of daily life for millions of people around the world. In fact, Google Assistant has helped answer billions of questions, send millions of messages, make millions of recipes, set billions of reminders and much more (hands-free!).

In its early days, Assistant offered just two voices, was available on Google Home speakers in the U.S. and supported English and German on Pixel phones. Now, Assistant is available in over 90 countries in nearly 30 languages, offers 10 voices to choose from and works with more than 100 million smart home devices, including lights, security systems and thermostats.

Try asking “Hey Google, Happy Birthday” or “Hey Google, how old are you?” for a timely surprise. To continue the celebration, members of the Google Assistant team share some of their favorite features and advancements from the past five years.

Supporting more complex, contextual and helpful conversations

Dave Orr, Group Product Manager, Natural Language Processing

Google Assistant brings together all the technology Google has been building for years, from the Knowledge Graph to Natural Language Processing. One of my proudest moments working on the team was when we applied BERT, the revolutionary neural transformer invented by Google in 2018, to Assistant conversations, helping Assistant understand context and longer dialogs, making conversations more natural.

Advancing and expanding AI capabilities

Lisa Huang, Group Product Manager, Duplex

A major milestone for me was when we introduced Duplex for Google Assistant three years ago — revolutionizing the ability for computers to understand and generate natural speech. It meant Assistant could make a phone call on your behalf for an appointment, find store hours or make online food orders easier. In fact, more than 600,000 reservations at restaurants and hair salons were made last month with this feature. Throughout the pandemic, Duplex made millions of calls to businesses for store hours and delivery availability, in Maps and Search.

Building a more inclusive Assistant

Beth Tsai, Director, Policy

One of the things I love most about Assistant is how intentional we’ve been about inclusivity. For example, we don’t think of Assistant as having any particular gender, which is reflected in its name. When you set up your Google Nest device, we randomly assign a voice, so you have a 50/50 chance of getting one of two voices — either the “red” voice or the “orange” voice. We don't formally designate voices as being "male" or "female," but you can think of the “red” voice as traditionally female sounding, and the “orange” voice as traditionally male sounding.

Bertrand Damiba — Group Product Manager, Language, Translation, Routines & Recommendations

I’m really proud of how our team mobilized to support and educate users around the Black Lives Matter movement through inclusive content. We also added the ability to say “Hey Google, what happened today in Black history?” and “Hey Google, what happened today in Latino history?”

Sheenam Maheshwari — Product Manager, Text-to-Speech

We’ve been working on adding Text-to-Speech voices for Google Assistant that can fluently speak and understand more than one language, even within one utterance (or code-switching) — they’ll launch in the coming days. Check out a preview of the new English-Spanish bilingual voice when you ask Assistant about Latino history. Names will even be pronounced in a more authentic Spanish accent. We’ll add support for English-Hindi and other common language pairs where code-switching often occurs later this year.

Designing a private Assistant from the ground up

Bryan Horling — Software Engineer, Privacy

A highlight from my time on the team was when we launched Guest Mode. Just say, “Hey Google, turn on Guest Mode,” and your Google Assistant interactions will not be saved to your account. Another way we’re helping users manage their data is with voice actions: You can say “Hey Google, delete my last conversation” or “Hey Google, delete everything I said to you this week” and Assistant will delete activity from your account.

Google Assistant is built to keep your information private, safe and secure. As always, users have control over how Google Assistant handles their data and the features they choose to use. You can do things like review, delete or turn off Web and App Activity, limit audio recordings or turn off ads personalization.

Creating more secure, optional personalized experiences

Nino Tasca — Group Product Manager, Speech

It was really exciting to be the first to introduce the technology that lets users teach a digital assistant to recognize their voice with Voice Match. You can choose to train Google Assistant to recognize your, your kids’ and whoever else’s voice you share a home with so everyone gets personalized responses. We built on this with Face Match, which means your device can recognize when you walk up to it and present a personalized display, or media — like your calendar or upcoming package deliveries.

Hands-free help while driving

Effie Goenawan — Product Manager, Auto

We just launched several new Google Assistant updates for cars, and I personally love that you can say "Hey Google, pay for gas" to complete your transaction from Android Auto or from your Android phone. And starting to roll out today, you can say “Hey Google, let’s drive” to access a new dashboard for Google Assistant driving mode on your phone or automatically launch it in your car via Bluetooth.

Helping families throughout their day

Brad Abrams — Group Product Manager, Family

At the onset of the pandemic, I quickly learned my family needed help keeping on track. One of my favorite productivity features is Family Bell. I use it on my smart speakers and smart displays to remind me it’s time to make dinner, or for my kids to take a break and stretch.

Building the smart home of the future

Michele Turner — Sr. Director, Product Management, Smart Home Ecosystem

One of the most exciting milestones for me was when Google and other leading tech companies came together to develop Matter, a protocol that simplifies smart homes by using one standard across the industry.

A redesigned Assistant for the phone

Luv Kothari — Senior Product Manager, Mobile

I personally enjoy calling features like Call Screen and Hold for Me where Assistant manages tasks over the phone. And our recent breakthroughs in on-device speech processing means that more requests can happen right on your Pixel, making Assistant faster and many device-level queries like “take a selfie,” “open Chrome,” “turn on flashlight” work even without an internet connection.

Video celebrating 5 years of Google Assistant
10:25

Happy 5th birthday, Google Assistant!

We launched Google Assistant five years ago — and back then, it sometimes felt a bit strange to ask our devices for help. Now, digital assistants are part of daily life for millions of people around the world. In fact, Google Assistant has helped answer billions of questions, send millions of messages, make millions of recipes, set billions of reminders and much more (hands-free!).

In its early days, Assistant offered just two voices, was available on Google Home speakers in the U.S. and supported English and German on Pixel phones. Now, Assistant is available in over 90 countries in nearly 30 languages, offers 10 voices to choose from and works with more than 100 million smart home devices, including lights, security systems and thermostats.

Try asking “Hey Google, Happy Birthday” or “Hey Google, how old are you?” for a timely surprise. To continue the celebration, members of the Google Assistant team share some of their favorite features and advancements from the past five years.

Supporting more complex, contextual and helpful conversations

Dave Orr, Group Product Manager, Natural Language Processing

Google Assistant brings together all the technology Google has been building for years, from the Knowledge Graph to Natural Language Processing. One of my proudest moments working on the team was when we applied BERT, the revolutionary neural transformer invented by Google in 2018, to Assistant conversations, helping Assistant understand context and longer dialogs, making conversations more natural.

Advancing and expanding AI capabilities

Lisa Huang, Group Product Manager, Duplex

A major milestone for me was when we introduced Duplex for Google Assistant three years ago — revolutionizing the ability for computers to understand and generate natural speech. It meant Assistant could make a phone call on your behalf for an appointment, find store hours or make online food orders easier. In fact, more than 600,000 reservations at restaurants and hair salons were made last month with this feature. Throughout the pandemic, Duplex made millions of calls to businesses for store hours and delivery availability, in Maps and Search.

Building a more inclusive Assistant

Beth Tsai, Director, Policy

One of the things I love most about Assistant is how intentional we’ve been about inclusivity. For example, we don’t think of Assistant as having any particular gender, which is reflected in its name. When you set up your Google Nest device, we randomly assign a voice, so you have a 50/50 chance of getting one of two voices — either the “red” voice or the “orange” voice. We don't formally designate voices as being "male" or "female," but you can think of the “red” voice as traditionally female sounding, and the “orange” voice as traditionally male sounding.

Bertrand Damiba — Group Product Manager, Language, Translation, Routines & Recommendations

I’m really proud of how our team mobilized to support and educate users around the Black Lives Matter movement through inclusive content. We also added the ability to say “Hey Google, what happened today in Black history?” and “Hey Google, what happened today in Latino history?”

Sheenam Maheshwari — Product Manager, Text-to-Speech

We’ve been working on adding Text-to-Speech voices for Google Assistant that can fluently speak and understand more than one language, even within one utterance (or code-switching) — they’ll launch in the coming days. Check out a preview of the new English-Spanish bilingual voice when you ask Assistant about Latino history. Names will even be pronounced in a more authentic Spanish accent. We’ll add support for English-Hindi and other common language pairs where code-switching often occurs later this year.

Designing a private Assistant from the ground up

Bryan Horling — Software Engineer, Privacy

A highlight from my time on the team was when we launched Guest Mode. Just say, “Hey Google, turn on Guest Mode,” and your Google Assistant interactions will not be saved to your account. Another way we’re helping users manage their data is with voice actions: You can say “Hey Google, delete my last conversation” or “Hey Google, delete everything I said to you this week” and Assistant will delete activity from your account.

Google Assistant is built to keep your information private, safe and secure. As always, users have control over how Google Assistant handles their data and the features they choose to use. You can do things like review, delete or turn off Web and App Activity, limit audio recordings or turn off ads personalization.

Creating more secure, optional personalized experiences

Nino Tasca — Group Product Manager, Speech

It was really exciting to be the first to introduce the technology that lets users teach a digital assistant to recognize their voice with Voice Match. You can choose to train Google Assistant to recognize your, your kids’ and whoever else’s voice you share a home with so everyone gets personalized responses. We built on this with Face Match, which means your device can recognize when you walk up to it and present a personalized display, or media — like your calendar or upcoming package deliveries.

Hands-free help while driving

Effie Goenawan — Product Manager, Auto

We just launched several new Google Assistant updates for cars, and I personally love that you can say "Hey Google, pay for gas" to complete your transaction from Android Auto or from your Android phone. And starting to roll out today, you can say “Hey Google, let’s drive” to access a new dashboard for Google Assistant driving mode on your phone or automatically launch it in your car via Bluetooth.

Helping families throughout their day

Brad Abrams — Group Product Manager, Family

At the onset of the pandemic, I quickly learned my family needed help keeping on track. One of my favorite productivity features is Family Bell. I use it on my smart speakers and smart displays to remind me it’s time to make dinner, or for my kids to take a break and stretch.

Building the smart home of the future

Michele Turner — Sr. Director, Product Management, Smart Home Ecosystem

One of the most exciting milestones for me was when Google and other leading tech companies came together to develop Matter, a protocol that simplifies smart homes by using one standard across the industry.

A redesigned Assistant for the phone

Luv Kothari — Senior Product Manager, Mobile

I personally enjoy calling features like Call Screen and Hold for Me where Assistant manages tasks over the phone. And our recent breakthroughs in on-device speech processing means that more requests can happen right on your Pixel, making Assistant faster and many device-level queries like “take a selfie,” “open Chrome,” “turn on flashlight” work even without an internet connection.

Video celebrating 5 years of Google Assistant
10:25

“Hey Google, tell me a girl hero story”

Today is International Day of the Girl, a chance to recognize the 1.1 billion girls who are changing the world — as well as acknowledge the challenges they face. This year’s theme is “Digital Inclusion for Girls” and to me, it means focusing on our responsibility at Google to make sure our technologies create opportunities for girls in the digital space. And that includes the ongoing work we do on Google Assistant to challenge gender stereotypes.

This effort was very personal to me – my son is five and I see him developing his views on people and differences between them every day. It matters deeply to me that he sees girls, and people from all over the world, as heroic, fierce, smart and successful.

I’m really excited that he can listen to some of the new inspiring stories of girls and women heroes available on Google Assistant. These stories focus on girls and women from diverse backgrounds, and push back against traditional tropes and focus more on problem-solving and leadership.

Just say “Hey Google, tell me a girl hero story” to select from a list of more than 25 new nonfiction and fiction stories from Capstone and The English Schoolhouse, developed by Earplay, on your Assistant-enabled phones and smart displays, like Nest Hub.

Image of the story ”Marielle's Sweet Shop” from The English Schoolhouse

Some of my favorites include “My Sister, Daisy,” which unpacks the relationship of siblings and gender identity, “Aunt Bunny” a heartwarming story highlighting the importance of community, family and friendship, and ”Marielle's Sweet Shop,” a story about a mom and daughter entrepreneur duo.

I also love learning more about personal heroes of mine through stories like “Amelia Earhart Builds a Roller Coaster' or 'Wilma Rudolph Plays Basketball."

Take a listen today, and learn more about the girls and women you think of as heroes — or maybe learn about a new one.

Welcome to spooky season

The smell of pumpkin spice is in the air, which means it’s about time to bust out the costumes, stock up on some candy and carve a pumpkin or two. If you need a little inspiration, look no further than these spooky Search and Maps trends we collected.

Pumpkin to Search about

Whether you plan on spending the day watching Halloween classics or trick-or-treating in a clever costume, we’ve got Search trends to give you some ideas. (Be sure to also check out our annual Frightgeist for the most-searched Halloween costumes across the U.S.)

Most-searched Halloween movies over the past week in the U.S.

  1. Halloween (1978)
  2. Friday the 13th
  3. Hocus Pocus
  4. A Nightmare on Elm Street
  5. Halloweentown

Already seen these? Grab the popcorn (or the candy corn) and virtually explore the filming locations of your favorite cult classics on Google Earth.

Moving on to costumes! Picking the right outfit — whether it’s just for you, a group or your furry friend — is important. Here are the costume searches that have been trending this week in the U.S.

Trending Halloween costumes:

  1. Squid Game
  2. Gorilla
  3. Britney Spears
  4. Carnage
  5. Venom

Trending couples costumes:

  1. Trixie and Timmy Turner
  2. Bonnie and Clyde
  3. Skid and Pump
  4. Mr. and Mrs. Smith
  5. Cosmo and Wanda

Trending dog costumes:

  1. Squid Game
  2. Race car
  3. Vampire
  4. Donkey
  5. Lobster

If you still aren’t sure what to wear, you can ask Google Assistant for some last-minute costume ideas, too. Just say "Hey Google, what should I be for Halloween?”

Maybe you’d prefer to boo-rowse aisles IRL without a crowd. We checked the most popular times on Google Maps to visit costume shops across the U.S. and found they’re at their busiest on Saturday and Sunday around 2 p.m., and least busy before 2 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday.

But, beware! Last-minute shoppers might be in for a scare. Google Maps searches for costume stores in the U.S. peaked on Halloween day last year — nearly doubling from the week before, and nearly tripling from October 10th. So get your costume and accessory shopping done early for the best chance of finding what you’re looking for.

For those interested in refreshments or snacks to follow all that trick-or-treating, you can see which Halloween drinks are being searched for by state. And of course, everyone has to know what their state prefers: candy corn or M&Ms?

Map of the United States showing what the uniquely searched Halloween drinks trends are per state.
Map of the United States showing what the most searched Halloween candy is per state, with Candy Corn being the most searched in the majority of states.

What unlocks a haunted house? A spoo-key

Of course, Halloween isn’t only about get-togethers and candy — some of us enjoy a little scare. Head over to the Google Maps guide to Halloween and check out Local Guide Kimbra Kasch's favorite spooky spots. And Kimbra should know: She grew up in a haunted house in Portland, Oregon!

Google Maps’ guide also has plenty of other places to discover for the fall festivities, so be sure to take a look.

Picture of grey Nest doorbell with spooky skeleton shadow.

Boooooos there?

Change up your Nest Doorbell ringtone to our “Halloween” theme to greet your guests with Halloween-inspired ghoulish ringtones which include an evil laugh, skeleton dance, ghost, howling werewolf, cackling witch and more. Ringtones are available globally on the Nest Doorbell (battery) and Nest Doorbell (wired), formally known as Nest Hello, through October 31, 2021.

You’re invited to the Google Smart Home Developer Summit

Posted by Toni Klopfenstein, Developer Relations Engineer

Google Smart Home Developer Summit

Today there are over 276 million smart home households globally, and the industry continues to see rapid growth every year. Users have never been more comfortable bringing home new smart home devices — but they also continue to expect more from their devices, and their smart homes. To meet and exceed these expectations, we want to make sure developers have the tools and support to build their best experience across the Google Home app, Nest, Android, and Assistant.

That’s why we’re excited to announce the return of the Google Smart Home Developer Summit on October 21, 2021! This year’s event is free to join, fully virtual and will be hosted on our website with broadcast times available for our developer communities in the AMER, EMEA, and APAC regions.

To kick things off, Michele Turner, Senior Director of Product for Google’s Smart Home Ecosystem, will share our vision for the home and preview upcoming tools and features to build your next devices and apps using Matter and Thread — technologies transforming the industry. This will be followed by a developer keynote to dig deeper into announcements, and a round of technical sessions, workshops, and more, hosted by Google's smart home leaders.

Building the best smart home platform means using trusted technology and intelligence to develop your integrations faster, provide tools to drive your innovation, and allow you new paths to growth. We can’t wait to engage with you and share more about how we can lead and grow the smart home together.

You can register for the Google Smart Home Developer Summit 2021 here, and follow along with the event using the tag #GoogleHomeSummit on social media. We hope to see you there!

Upgrade your drive with Google as your copilot

Do you drive with your phone clipped to your air vent? Or does your car have the latest built-in infotainment system? No matter what kind of car you own, Google is ready to make your drive better.  We’re bringing updates to Google Assistant driving mode, Android Auto and cars with Google built-in (welcome Honda!) to help every driver find their way around, stay entertained, and keep in touch.


Google Assistant driving mode on Android phones gets a new dashboard

Millions of people in more than 12 countries use Google Assistant driving mode every day, by offering  voice-activated help via your Android phone in older cars. We originally launched it for active navigation in Google Maps, helping drivers manage tasks, like answering a call or responding to text messages with minimal distraction. 

Thanks to early feedback, we heard how important it is to have your go-to apps handy for your drive, even when you don’t need turn-by-turn navigation. So coming soon, you’ll be able to say “Hey Google, let’s drive” (or connect your phone to your car’s Bluetooth) to open the new driving mode dashboard, reducing the need to fiddle with your phone while also making sure you stay focused on the road. With glanceable, tappable cards, the basics you’ll need for the road are available with a single tap — no scrolling required: Start your navigation, see who called or texted recently and quickly resume media from Amazon Music, Audible, iHeartRadio, JioSaavn, Pandora, Podcast Addict, SoundCloud, Spotify, YouTube Music and more providers. Plus, there’s a new messaging update: Just say “​​Hey Google, turn on auto read” to hear new messages read aloud as they come in and to respond by voice.

Driving mode will be the primary experience for Android phones going forward and will fully roll out in the next few weeks for Android phones in English (U.S., Australia, Canada, Ireland, India, Singapore and U.K.), German, Spanish (Spain, Mexico), French and Italian.

Image of the new Google Assistant driving mode dashboard which features easy to see, tappable cards to find media, navigate and call / text..

Improvements coming to Android Auto on car displays

We’re also launching new features for the more than 100 million cars compatible with Android Auto — bringing help from Google onto your car display via your Android phone. 

You’ll now see music, news and podcast recommendations from Google Assistant, and be able to set which app launches whenever Android Auto starts. You’ll even be able to enjoy games from GameSnacks right from the car’s display while you’re parked, waiting for a to-go order or charging your vehicle. 

If you’re a dual-SIM Android phone user, you can now choose which SIM card to use when making calls through Android Auto. And great news for commuters: ​​Android Auto will support your “Work profile,” which lets you see upcoming work meetings and messages on your car’s display. 

When it’s time to fill up at the gas station, you can now put away your credit card or cash and say, “Hey Google, pay for gas” on Android Auto or from your Android phone. Select your pump number and  complete contactless payment with Google Pay. This will be available at over 32,500 gas stations across the U.S. starting with Exxon and Mobil, Conoco, Phillips 66 and 76 stations. 


The best of Google apps and services built-in to more cars

In the coming years, millions of cars will have Google fully built-in to their infotainment systems, so you can get around with Google Maps, use Google Assistant to turn on the A/C, download your favorite apps on Google Play and much more, even without a smartphone.

Image of Honda's brand logo

We’re excited to share that our newest partner, Honda, will be launching future models with Google built-in starting in 2022. In addition to Honda, this experience will be available on cars from top brands including Ford, General Motors, Polestar, Renault and Volvo Cars. Today, you can test drive or purchase cars with Google built-in —  like the Polestar 2 and Volvo XC40 Recharge — and it’s coming to many more cars soon, like the new Chevrolet Silverado and Renault Mégane E-TECH Electric.

Image of a user asking Google to help find the nearest charging station from a car with Google -built in

If you drive an electric vehicle with Google built in, we make it easy to find charging stations and minimize charging time with Google Maps. Just say, “Hey Google, find me a charging station” to instantly see nearby stations compatible with your car, payment type and speed preferences, along with real-time information about whether or not a charger is available. And with new support for thermal battery management, Google Maps saves you precious time by helping your car’s battery heat up or cool down before you charge, reducing the amount of time you need to spend at a charger. 

No matter what car you drive, we’re working hard to make sure you have the help you need from Google to get things done while keeping your hands on the wheel and eyes on the road. 


“Hey Google, read with Reese’s Book Club”

As a young girl growing up in Venezuela, I had an insatiable appetite for reading. From fictional novels to computer science manuals, you name it, I would read it. Books allowed me to get lost in other worlds, expand my imagination and ultimately inspire me to dream bigger. These days, you can catch me reading with my two young kids or when I take some quiet “me time” on the weekends.


That’s why I’m delighted that Google Assistant has partnered with Reese’s Book Club to offer a hands-free, immersive reading experience on Nest smart speakers, smart displays and Assistant-enabled mobile devices in English-speaking countries across the globe. Assistant users can now discover Reese Witherspoon’s monthly book picks, take a quiz for personalized book recommendations and get exclusive commentary about each book pick from Reese herself.
A GIF of the new Reese’s Book Club reading experience available on Google Assistant.

Google Assistant has partnered with Reese’s Book Club to offer a hands-free, immersive book curation experience.

To get started, simply say “Hey Google, read with Reese’s Book Club” on your Assistant-enabled device.

You can easily link your account if you’re an existing Reese’s Book Club member —  or sign up with your Google account if you’d like to join. And you can still access this great content even if you aren’t a member: In addition to checking out the current and previous month’s book picks, you can find out why Reese recommends a particular monthly book pick, or hear her personal book reviews. And if you want to read the full book, simply head to Google Play Books to make a purchase. You can also add books to your “book pile” so you can better keep track of what you’d like to read next. 


What I like most about the book club is that each monthly book pick features interesting and diverse narratives from a female perspective. I can’t wait to read with Reese and hope you enjoy it just as much as I do.

Find detailed information on vaccination availability near you

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to be a priority within our communities, vaccines remain one of our biggest protections. Nationwide vaccination drives are in full swing, and as more people look to get vaccinated, their requirements for information continue to evolve: finding vaccine availability by location, specific information about vaccination services offered, and details on appointment availability are increasingly important to know.

In March 2021, we started showing COVID-19 vaccination centers on Google, in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Starting this week, for over 13,000 locations across the country, people will be able to get more helpful information about vaccine availability and appointments -- powered by real-time data from the CoWIN APIs. This includes information such as:

  • Availability of appointment slots at each center

  • Vaccines and doses offered (Dose 1 or Dose 2)

  • Expectations for pricing (Paid or Free)

  • Link to the CoWIN website for booking

Across Google Search, Maps, and Google Assistant, now find more detailed information on vaccination availability, including vaccines and doses available, appointments and more

The above information will automatically show up when users search for vaccine centers near them, or in any specific area – across Google Search, Maps and Google Assistant. In addition to English, users can also search in eight Indian languages including Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Gujarati, and Marathi. We will continue to partner closely with the CoWIN team to extend this functionality to all vaccination centers across India.

As people continue to seek information related to the pandemic to manage their lives around it, we remain committed to finding and sharing authoritative and timely information across our platforms.

Posted by Hema Budaraju, Director, Google Search