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Since I brought home the Google Home unit, one thing has vexed my kids more than anything. With a device you can ask questions and hope for personalized results, a one-account setup is very limiting.
According to a recent tear-down of the latest Home app APK from Android Police, it looks like multi-account support is coming.
In the tear-down, it is clear that Google Home will be able to distinguish voices and that this feature is in early development.
While it could be some time before we see full implementation, it seems that Google Home will be able to be trained to multiple voices to react and answer depending on the voice delivering the command.
This Helps In Many Ways
First, Google Home should be WAY less prone to reacting to voices on TV or others you may have over visiting. Being unable to set up accounts, Google Home has to be pretty open to any voices.
That causes it to respond to radio or TV more than I’d like.
With account setup, voice models can be learned and Google Home can begin to only respond to voices it is told to respond to.
Second, when you do something like ask Google Home to set an alarm for you, it can know who you are and set the alarm accordingly. Anything like this that is tied to a particular account is simply not possible at this point.
Right now, for isntance, my kids love asking “who is my brother?” or “who is my mom?”, but they either get an answer that doesn’t match or they give Google Home info that really makes things odd.
If my daughter asks who her mom is and Google Home asks for that info, she says my wife’s name. Now, my wife is set as my mom because mine is the only account logged into the device. Google Home has no way to know who is talking to it, so it always assumes the person talking is me.
This is very limiting.
As Google Home becomes more and more capable, using different accounts will be crucial for homes with more than one person in them. This is a very hopeful step in the right direction and hopefully unlocks all the things we’d like to see Google Home doing.
Being able to send a message, make a calendar event, or set an alarm will make this little cylinder in our kitchen extremely more useful. And way more used, too.
