Hello everybody Those in the US have had this for several months. But, as of today, calling contacts, or even general phone numbers, using Google Home or Google Home Mini is now supported in the official release.
I’ve been playing with this for a few weeks, as I’m part of the Google beta team. It works very well indeed and it’s at least as good, if not better than, Amazon’s Alexa calling. As far as I know, for example, it isn’t possible to dial an unknown number using Alexa. It isn’t possible to call the emergency services using Alexa. It isn’t possible to temporarily put callers on hold, use your voice assistant, then resume the call, on Amazon Alexa. When, on Google Home, you want to query something with Google, you just prepend your query with the usual “Hey Google”, or OK Google”. When you do this your remote person doesn’t hear what you’re saying, nor do they hear what Google Assistant comes back with. Regarding recording phone calls, that isn’t possible. The reason for this is the legal situation here in the UK. It’s only legal, for instance, to record a phone call if you pre-advise the caller that you’re doing so, and if your recording system emits a short beep every 15 seconds whilst the recording is being made. So, the only things which get recorded are your interactions with the Google Assistant, plus the start call and end call commands. The down side is that calling using Google isn’t free. As things stand, I’m not totally sure what the rates are. But your Google account is automatically charged each billing cycle for calls you’ve made. To the best of my knowledge, it isn’t possible to “Receive” calls from other users on Google Assistant. That is one more area where Alexa winds the battle at the moment. As I understand it, this functionality is scheduled to hit the rest of Europe, Australia and New Zealand in the second half of 2018. Although that is subject to change at this time. ======================================== My compliments and kindest regards Gordon Smith: <[email protected]> Accessibility & Information Technology Support Specialist.. This Message Was Created Using 100% Recycled Electrons. If you can avoid printing it, please do so. Think of the environment, save a tree! Contact: Twitter: @maciosaccess • UK Free Phone: 0800 8620538 • UK Geographic / Global: +44(0) 1642 688095 • UK Mobile/SMS: +44 (0)7804 983849 • Vic. Australia: +61 38 82059300 • US/Canada: +1 646 9151493 ----------------------------------------
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