The recent mass shift to working from home hasn’t been easy for a lot of folks, so in order to help people manage their time a little better, the Google Assistant is getting a new Workday Routine feature.
Designed as a way to help break up your day into smaller chunks with dedicated break times, the Google Assistant’s Workday Routine starts off with a pre-configured schedule that you can tweak to suit your needs. So by default, at 10 am, the Google Assistant might tell you to pause and stretch, while later in the day at regular intervals the Assistant might remind you to drink some water or go for a walk.
Then at 4:45 pm, the Google Assistant will even remind you to start wrapping things up before the end of your work day. Now I admit that in today’s world it’s kind of quaint to even consider winding things down around 5PM, with the nature of working remotely seriously blurring the lines between work and life, its even more important to try to figure out some kind of balance.
Naturally, because the Google Assistant is meant to adjust to you, it’s possible to add new events or reminders to your schedule as needed like setting a notification for an upcoming meeting (“Hey Google, create an event.”), creating a to-do lists, or adding a recurring task like a daily reminder to fill out a time card. And in case you ever forget about what might be left on your schedule, you can always say “Hey Google, what’s on my calendar?”
Aside from its new Workday Routine feature, the Google Assistant is getting one other upgrade in the form of the Gentle Sleep and Wake feature, which allows you to control your connected lights by slowly turning on or dimming them in the morning or even. Like other routines, this functionality can be set to a specific time, so if you want your lights to slowly fade out over 30 minutes before going to sleep at night, you can simply say “Hey Google, sleep my lights at 11 PM.”
Previously, the Gentle Sleep and Wake feature was available on select smart lights like those from Philips Hue, but now the feature will be available to all of your smart lights connected to Google regardless of brand.
The Google Assistant’s Workday Routine feature can be enabled by going into the Assistant’s settings on your Android or iOS phone, while the Gentle Sleep and Wake feature is set to roll out over the next few days.