When I expressed excitement at the Google Assistant making the leap to headphones, there were some interesting comments directly to me as well as on the post. Everything from: “Why would you need this?” to “You can already do this”…
Thankfully Ian Lake, a Googler has taken to Google+ to explain the technology a little further and why this is such a big deal.
The upshot is that while Bluetooth headphones can do most of what you would be trying to do, it’s missing some of the feature functionality of the Assistant. Areas such as the Voice UI adding context to what alerts and notifications you have just received or are currently pending.
My personal favorite feature and why I prefer these headphones over all my others is the VUI (Voice UI) around reading and responding to notifications. While regular notifications will play their chime just like on normal headphones, these headphones can detect messaging notifications and will instead read the name of the person (super important context usually missing). From there, a simple tap of the button will read the notification out loud (this works with any notification!). For messaging notifications, you also get the chance to reply, directly from the headphones by holding down the button.
I can certainly see the other side of the coin that has been presented to me…
But I’m still excited to get my hands on a pair of Google Assistant enabled headphones.
How much further can the Assistant technology be integrated with our lives?
