Yes, you read that right – Google Assistant can now control chargers.
What’s a charger you ask? Looking at the new device schema added to the list of supported Google Assistant Actions it is broad enough it could be anything from a mobile device charger all the way up to your self driving electric car.
Any charger connected to your Google Assistant will be displayed with a new Charger icon. In the deice type documentation Goggle makes reference to cars, vacuums and door locks. The new Charger action allows for starting and stopping charging, checking the charge level of the connected device, along with metadata like time until fully charged.
It is possible that the new device type will also allow the Assistant to start querying the battery level of devices that’s aren’t just standalone chargers – for example, your robot vacuum. It would be great to have Assistant support built into Solar power storage, so you could query how much power you have stored before you turn that AC on on the way home.
Like all Assistant actions, having a defined schema is only half the battle – now, companies need to start building support in their devices and software for it to be of use.
