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The company just confirmed that it’s rolling out Google Home’s calling feature in the US and Canada beginning today. Users can dial anyone in their contacts and local businesses for free — so long as the call recipient is in one of those two countries. To get it set up, you first need to set up the Google Assistant with your Duo account. Since the launch of the Nest Hub , it’s been possible to Duo call your smart display from a phone or call your loved ones from your Nest Hub. Meanwhile, the classic Google Home speakers were left without this handy feature, but not for long.
The newly released Nest Hub Max even includes a camera, unlike its smaller predecessor, for use with Google Duo, among other things. All calls using Hands-Free Calling are made over Wi-Fi and are separate from your smartphone. There's no way to call someone else's Nest speaker or smart display however. Google's Hands-Free calling feature only supports outgoing calls, and the only way to use the feature is with your Nest speaker or smart display device. All Google Home speakers and displays can be used for voice calling. There are three different ways your Google speakers and displays make voice calls, but it varies by country as to what is available and features differ too.
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Upgrade your lifestyleDigital Trends helps readers keep tabs on the fast-paced world of tech with all the latest news, fun product reviews, insightful editorials, and one-of-a-kind sneak peeks. Google Home can identify different users in your house by voice, so if you say “OK Google, call dad” it will call your dad without needing to ask which user is making the request. Though even a single slip-up there could get awkward...
To make voice calls with your mobile number from your Google Nest Hub or Nest Hub Max in the US or UK, just follow the same instructions for Google Home above. However, you can also use Google Duo for making calls with Google Nest Hub or Nest Hub Max. You gain the ability to make video calls as well as voice calls this way, but be aware that this is then limited to other Google Duo users. With Google Nest and Home speakers and displays, you can make calls to friends, family, and businesses with your voice.
Alexa calling versus hands-free calls with Google Home
You can also add yourself to the household contacts, which allows guests to call you from your speaker or display. With just your voice, you can call millions of businesses in the US and Canada, thanks to built-in Google Search on Google Nest speakers and displays. So, you'll be able to say "Hey Google, call Bob's Pizza" or "Hey Google, call mum". You can also try, “Hey Google, start a meeting” to connect with up to 100 people onGoogle Meetfor fitness classes, book clubs, community gatherings or whatever else you’ve got planned.
Cameron Summerson is ex-Editor-in-Chief of Review Geek and served as an Editorial Advisor for How-To Geek and LifeSavvy. He covered technology for a decade and wrote over 4,000 articles and hundreds of product reviews in that time. He’s been published in print magazines and quoted as a smartphone expert in the New York Times.
Tips for better voice calls and video calls
That’s both good and bad at the moment, which I’ll get into next. For most users, their Google Home will be ready to make phone calls without any extra setup. After Alexa gave users the ability to call other Echo owners, Google upped the ante with true phone calls. If you live in the U.S. or Canada, you can use your Google Home to place a call to anyone’s phone. You don’t need to limit yourself to other people who have a Google Home. For Google Duo, you'll only be able to video call a contact that also has Google Duo.
You may use this when you’re away from home to call your local emergency services instantly. Using Nest Aware Emergency Calling while you’re away from home will put your call through to a call center that can deploy emergency responders to your house. In most cases, if you dial 911 from a mobile phone, your request is routed to the nearest 911 call center.
“Hey Google, make a group call”
Google Assistant and Nest have always made it easy to connect with friends and family—and now, the more the merrier. Calls via Google Home devices is available to people in the U.S., U.K., and Canada. English, U.K. English, Canadian English, or French Canadian for it to work.
You can tell Google Home to display the phone number you’ve got tied to either Google Voice or Project Fi by going to the Assistant settings in your Google Home smartphone app for Android or iOS. Once that’s done, recipients will see your number show up instead of the terrible “no caller ID” thing. Your options are to use your mobile phone’s service and number, a Google Voice number, Google Fi account, or on supported devices, Google Duo . Depending on your device and your location, you may not have all these options available to you. You can use Google Home — Google's smart speaker with Google Assistant built in — to place phone calls.
On the Calls on speakers page, tap "Your own number" and then tap "Add or change phone number." The voice call setup options require a number of clicks to find in the Google Home app. It’s also worth mentioning that since Home works with multiple accounts, every member of the house can set their own phone number. Home does anexcellent job of getting the voices correct every time. If you don’t have Project Fi or Google Voice , then you can also link another phone number.
Duo calling allows speakers and displays to make and receive video and voice calls to anyone with a Google Duo account. This works worldwide, allows for calls between speakers/displays and mobile devices and calls are free. You can make voice calls using Nest Mini smart speakers -- or video calls with the Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max smart displays. Zoom or Google Meet on a laptop might be your usual video calling M.O., but smart displays and speakers are making hands-free video and voice calling easier all the time. Google Nest Hub smart displays can help you Zoom while you make lunch in the kitchen, and Nest Audio and Nest Mini smart speakers can give you hands-free voice calling convenience, too.
You may also inquire about a local business and just say, “Call them,” if you like. You may skip this step if you performed it during the initial setup of your Google Home or Google Home Mini; otherwise, continue reading. Hands-free Calling for Google Home and Nest speakers is available in the US and Canada only. You can’t call one Google Home device from another, nor can you call emergency numbers. While Google Home’s calling works pretty well, it does come with some caveats and limitations. With the original Google Home, you can tap the top of the device.
Tap Manage Your Account, then scroll to the People and sharing tab. TapContact info from your devices, then turn onSave contacts from your signed-in devices. This will sync your contacts from your other Google devices to your Google Nest smart displays and speakers.
The folks at Android Police have been tipped off to the recent arrival of audio-only Duo calling both to and from Google Home speakers. You can also use your speaker by saying "OK, Google, set up household contacts." Then a notification will come to your phone from the Google Assistant app helping you set up household contacts. The person you're calling needs to be stored in Google Contacts for things to work so the next step is to sync your contacts to your Google Nest speaker or hub. If you're using another contacts app, make sure those numbers are stored in Google's cloud. Go here to learn how to sync contacts with your Google account.
It looks like Google is prepared to port a lot of the features of the Google Home Hub over to other smart displays as well, including third-party manufactured products. To make things even weirder, it appears that the device won’t support audio-only calls, meaning that two different Home Hub owners can’t even call each other using those very same Home Hub devices. One owner would have to call his or her recipient using a phone, tablet or a smart display that does have a camera and supports Duo calls. The snazzy new Google Home Hubdoesn’t have a camera on it, ostensibly for privacy reasons but also possibly to downgrade the cost.
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