Google pushes update that lays the groundwork for Google Home calling

Why it matters to you

Google Home is about to get a pretty significant update, including one that could allow you to manually reroute your Assistant requests.

Google wants to make it easier for you to control your smart home. To that end, the company has pushed an update to the Google Home app that brings some pretty major and helpful changes, including the ability to manually reroute voice commands to the user’s smartphone.

The app update was first spotted by Android Police, which notes that it also lays the groundwork for Google Home calling — a feature coming to the smart speaker at some point in the near future. Using Google Home, you can simply ask the Google Assistant to make a call, and it will call from a masked number by default, or from your phone number if you link that number.

The update clears some of the air as to how this works — while some theorized that the feature will still occur through the user’s phone but would use Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to handle the audio, in reality it looks like the phone number is linked directly to Google Home, and calls are handled through Google Voice. The update also shows that, at least for now, only outgoing calls can be handled through Google Home — and you’ll have to answer incoming calls on your actual phone. It’s possible support for incoming calls will be added in the near future.

As mentioned, the app also offers manual control over which Google Assistant answers any given question. You might have multiple versions of Assistant at your disposal — one on your phone, another on your Google Home speaker, and another on your Android TV. According to Android Police, it’s not yet known exactly how you’ll be able to manually select an Assistant, but a string of code in the update does refer to it being possible — so presumably we’re waiting for Google to enable the feature.