Wouldn't it be great if upon waking up you could say "Ok Google, good morning" to have your lights and coffee machine turned on while the news is read to you? Similarly, when you go to bed, it would be great if you could say "goodnight" to have your lights dimmed and your security system activated. Well, soon™ you'll be able to, thanks to new multi-step actions that can be added to everyday 'routines.'

It's already possible to use certain preset routines that read the news and give you calendar appointments, but now it will be possible to add more functions to them. Advanced users might have been able to do something similar with a service like IFTTT, but this should make it a lot easier for everyone else to set up single commands for multiple actions. Cody uncovered some strings relating to this new feature in a recent teardown of the Google app, so we knew this could be coming soon. Google's general manager of home products, Rishi Chandra, took to the stage yesterday to talk about the Google Assistant's new abilities, which you can take a look at below.

As well as the chance to create your own groups of actions for devices from a huge range of hardware partners (including Nest), there will also be more presets added for inspiration. 'Voice Match' also comes into play here, too, so each family member can have different routines triggered by their voices for certain phrases. A number of other Assistant improvements were announced at the big Google event yesterday, including identifying songs and much more. There was impressive new hardware for Assistant to run on, as the Google Home Mini and Max speakers were introduced.

It's not clear when routines are going to become available, but you can be sure we'll let you know as soon as they arrive.

Source: Google