Ok google: what is it and what is it for

There are more and more resources on the market to make life easier for us, and Google is not far behind. The giant with glasses offers us the services of OK Google to help us in searches and solve all questions we want to ask, so let's start with the basics: what is it and what is it for?

Index of contents

What is OK Google?

OK Google is a search assistance service. It is fully designed to respond by voice control and is found both in Google's Chrome search engine and Maps as well as its Google Home and Google Home Mini devices, which are integrated as standard.

Google Home Mini using OK Google

This means that any device, whether mobile, tablet, laptop or desktop computer that has the Google search engine and has a microphone, can use the OK Google command. There are several ways to do it:

OK Google in the Google Chrome browser

For those who want to have the assistant even if you don't have Google Home or Google Home Mini, we explain how to activate it:

Once we open the search engine, we simply press the microphone icon and ask our question. This will be transcribed on the screen and the search bar and Google will proceed to index it. The best possible answer will be read aloud to us and show us related web pages, maps or videos.

OK Google activating Voice Match

To activate the Voice Match or verify that we have it, we must go to the Google application and select: More <Settings <Voice <Voice Match.

NOTE: We must have updated Google to its latest version. We can check if this is the case in the Play Store <Menu <Applications and Games.

OK Google on Google Maps

If we only want to use OK Google for journeys, routes or traffic we can also do it. We must open Google Maps and go to:

Menu <Settings <Navigation settings <OK Google detection

In this way we will save as much data as possible, since Maps tends to consume a lot. It will also serve us a map already saved or preloaded for trips. Once operational, we just have to ask for something along the lines of: “OK Google, show me the best route to get to the Pompidou Museum by car” .

What is it for?

The Google assistant as a voice command has multiple uses. we can ask you about the weather, traffic on the M40, a good sushi restaurant in the area…

A good way to test it and find out its functions is to ask: "OK Google, what can you do?" . The assistant will answer us not only with some suggestions, but also showing us a list of its integrated functions. We list the most used:

1. TimeAlarmsCallsMessagesAnswersMusicRemindersTimersCalculationTranslationSearchNear sites

NOTE: We are in the process of doing another tutorial called OK Google: how to activate it and list of commands. We will upload the link here to go deeper into this section.

All this shows us the potential of the assistant from simple requests. Here are some examples:

OK Google…

• What is the square root of 526? What's the weather like this weekend? Send a Whatssap to Miguel saying that the article is ready. Create an alarm for today at 18:30. Call Victoria on mobile.

When we request to send messages or call people on our agenda, several things will happen:

• If there are several users with the same name, it will list them all for us and we will have to indicate which one they should contact. Once we have said the content of the message out loud, it will read it to us and ask if we confirm the content or edit it. to make a call, this will be without speaker unless we specify it.

In addition, in the lower area we can find a button called More Options that takes us to the Explore section of our account. There we can see the latest news added to the wizard as well as games, stock information or suggested topics.

OK Google without internet?

Is it possible to use the wizard in offline mode? The answer is yes, but not all of its functions can be performed. That is, those that do not need the internet (timer, alarm, reminder, calculator, calls, etc.) will act without problem. However, searches that require geolocation or data, may not be accurate or performed correctly unless they have access to a WIFI network.

To activate the wizard without network connection, the path is the same as that indicated in the Voice Match point only that once in Voice <Offline voice recognition <Spanish (install if it is not).

OK Google on Google Home & Google Home Mini

For those of you who use the wizard through the devices at home, we have developed a very complete guide in which we cover this and many other topics:

Google Home Mini: how to set it up step by step

Google Home Mini: Review in Spanish (Complete Analysis)

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• OK Google command does not work for many Android users How to create routines in Google Home