The Google Assistant has been able to turn the lights on and off for a while, but until now, it could only do so immediately. This meant that it did not have the ability to run a timer and perform the action after the time has elapsed. Fortunately, the digital assistant has gotten even smarter and can now operate your lights based on the time or duration you specify.
Now you can tell the Google Assistant to “turn off the lights in five minutes” or even turn them on at a specific time, such as “turn on the light in the living room at 5:45 pm.” Similarly, you can ask him to turn on a light for a specific period of time by saying, “turn on the entrance light for five minutes.” I was even able to schedule events for the next day, but couldn’t schedule them several days in advance.
While the above features can be helpful, they still need a bit of work. First, when you ask the Google Assistant to do something “tomorrow,” you must specify the exact time, or it will simply recognize your command without asking for clarification. Also, if for some reason he misunderstands you and decides to turn your house into a disco in the middle of the night, there doesn’t seem to be a way to cancel the request, although you can always ask him to turn off the lights a minute later.
Google says on a support page that users can schedule Wizard actions for “several” days.
Users can schedule the command to fire by specifying a time or duration. For example:
“Ok Google, turn on the lights in five minutes.”
Ok Google, turn on the lights at 7am. M. »
Commands can be scheduled for the current day or for another day within the next seven day period. For example, users can say:
Ok Google, turn on my coffee pot tomorrow at 8am. M. »
“Ok Google, turn on my sprinkler in a week at 5 pm”
This may seem like a basic feature, but it is one that the Wizard has been missing for a long time. It’s also something that Amazon Alexa technically lacks, although a similar feature has worked with the company’s routines.
In particular, this feature is specifically limited to smart home devices. You can’t program actions like playing music or using routines. However, the feature works on both Assistant speakers / displays and smartphones. Google also notes on its support page that you can cancel scheduled actions as a group or by device.