Google’s guacamole may be premature, but it looks ripe to become an Android feature

Google probably hadn’t planned to reveal it until the company’s I / O developer conference on May 18, but it looks like a cat may have been out of the bag: the company is testing a feature that should allow you to stop alarms and answer calls on your Android Phone just by saying “stop” – no need to pick up your phone or even say “Hey Google”.

We know this because a mysterious new setting called ‘Guacamole’ has appeared in the Google app on Android 11 for some users – including me. (Android Police and 9to5Google And while none of us journalists have been able to activate the feature yet, it’s pretty easy to imagine what it does.

If you prefer not to imagine, 9to5GoogleSources say it will specifically handle alarms, timers and calls by letting you say “Stop”, “Snooze” and “Answer / decline the call” respectively. None of these worked for me after I flipped the switch, possibly because I was unable to access an internal Google website for dogfood employees.

I even tried adding a dot to make it g.co/assistant-guacamole, thinking the “go” might have been a typo for one of Google’s short g.co links, but no dice.

If the feature sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because Google has already put guacamole in its Google Home / Nest Hub speakers and smart displays during Google I / O 2019. You could just say “stop” to stop their alarms for almost two years already.

“We are constantly experimenting with new ways to improve the overall experience with the Google Assistant. We have no additional details to share at this time,” says Google The edge.