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'Hey Google' driving you nuts? Wake-word sensitivity rolling out now
Update, April 24, 2020 (5 AM ET): Google has now confirmed through an official blog post that it has started rolling out Assistant’s new wake-word sensitivity feature.
In the coming weeks, you should be able to adjust how sensitive Google Assistant is in your settings through the Google Home app.
These settings can be altered at any time and for each device as per your preference. The feature will be supported in English with more languages to follow.
Google is also tweaking the Voice Match feature for Assistant so that it’s able to understand you better.
The Assistant will now prompt you to say full phrases when setting up Voice Match instead of just the hotword “Hey Google.” This will help it verify the identity of the speaker with higher accuracy.
Original article, April 22, 2020 (7:25 AM ET): We first heard about Google’s wake-word sensitivity option in September 2019, with Google saying it will allow users to adjust how sensitive the Google Assistant is to a simple “hey Google.”
Now, the company has confirmed to The Verge that the feature is rolling out “gradually” to users. The news comes shortly after XDA editor-in-chief Mishaal Rahman was able to activate wake-word sensitivity adjustments in the Google Home app.
The feature allows you to adjust a sensitivity slider for each Google Assistant-enabled device in your household. So increasing the sensitivity for one device means it’ll listen more intently to a “Hey Google” or any other wake-word.
The wake-word sensitivity feature could be handy for those with multiple Assistant devices in their household. For example, if you’re speaking to the Google Nest Hub in the kitchen but a device in the next room responds as well, you could turn down the sensitivity on the latter device.
There’s no word on when and where the feature is rolling out to users apart from Google saying it’s launching gradually. Have you received wake-word sensitivity in the Google Home app? Give us all the details below!