5 Google Assistant features you should turn off today

Having Google to help you with quick questions, set timers, or report today’s weather is great. You can use its voice assistant to manage your smart home, call friends or restaurants for take out, and much more.

Still, there are things you may want to turn off on your Google smart speaker or smart display. Each characteristic of Google Assistant will not suit everyone.

Whether you’re concerned about privacy or just want a more streamlined experience, here are five things to turn off to get a simpler and safer Google Assistant experience.

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Voice recording settings

Google recently announced changes to its voice recording Privacy settings. Unless you sign up, Google won’t save your audio recordings or share them with its human analyzers to improve Google’s algorithms. However, if you’ve enabled or have already saved audio recordings, you can choose how long Google keeps them or manually delete them.

To adjust these settings, visit this link or in your Home app, tap your profile picture at the top right, then tap Assistant settings. There you will land on the You tongue. To select Your data in the wizard and scroll to Audio recordings. Tap to display options to save, review, and delete recordings.

Continuous conversation

Continuous Conversation allows Google to listen to follow-up questions without you having to say “Hey, Google” a second time. While this is convenient, additional listening can sometimes be less than seamless, especially when you don’t have a follow-up question or are just asking someone else in the room a question. Fortunately, you can turn this feature off.

To turn off continuous conversation in the Home app, tap your profile picture in the top right, then tap Assistant settings. In the next screen, navigate to Assistant tab. There you will see several options, including Continuous conversation. You will be able to turn off continuous conversation and see which speakers it will affect.

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“Hey Google” sensitivity

If you always feel like you accidentally wake up your smart speakers, the “Hey Google” sensitivity may be too high. You can adjust the way your Google Assistant responds to its wake-up word if it can’t hear you well enough or if it uses other words for its wake-up call.

To adjust sensitivity in the Home app, tap your profile picture in the top right, then tap Assistant settings. In the next screen, navigate to Assistant tab and you will see several options including “Hey Google” sensitivity. Here you can adjust the sensitivity of each individual speaker in your home. Select the speaker you want to adjust and choose from five settings ranging from “least sensitive” to “most sensitive”.

Camera settings

If you are using a Google compatible smart display such as the Nest Hub Max, Lenovo Smart Display or JBL link view, you may want to keep your camera off when you are not making video calls. Each screen does this a little differently. While JBL and Lenovo offer physical shutter options, you don’t get a built-in shutter with Google’s internal display, the Nest Hub Max.

Instead, there’s a toggle button on the back of the screen to turn off the camera and microphone. An indicator light next to the camera lens indicates the current status. This is difficult, as you will have to remember to turn it on and off every time you use any camera function. Still, it’s important to have the ability to make sure your camera is turned off when needed.

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Activity checks

Like voice recordings, Google records information about the sites and applications that you use with your Google Account. If you’re concerned about privacy, adjusting these settings gives you some peace of mind.

In the Home app, tap your profile picture in the top right, then tap Assistant settings. Press the three points at the top right of your screen and select Google activity controls. There you will see a page with options to control what information Google collects from your online activity and on mobile apps. You can also turn on automatic deletion and choose how often your data is deleted.

Whether you adjust any or all of these settings, customizing your voice assistant can make the overall experience much more enjoyable. If you live in a large household, features such as Voice Match and home contacts can help everyone live in harmony with the same devices.

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