It has been possible to call your smart display from a phone or call your loved ones from your Nest Hub since the launch of the Nest Hub (at the time Google Home Hub). Meanwhile, without this useful feature , the classic Google Home speakers have been left, but not for long. You can now lastly place audio calls through Google Duo to your Google Home smart speakers.
One of Assistant Smart Displays ‘ biggest selling points was the ability to remain linked via Duo video calling. The newly released Nest Hub Max also involves a camera for use with Google Duo, among other things, unlike its smaller predecessor.
By adding a new “Call Home” button to the Google Home app, Google has even lately enhanced this ability to call your home smart display. With this, the smart display has started to take the place of the decades-old landline home phone, being able to call your entire family instead of the cell phone of a particular person.
But what about all we already own smart speakers? Android Police folks have been tipped off to the latest arrival of audio-only Duo calling both Google Home speakers and from them.
You must first set up the Google Assistant with your Duo account to get it set up. Open the Settings menu of the Assistant and open “Voice & Video Calls” under the “Services” tab, followed by “Video & Voice Apps.” From here, if you haven’t already, you’ll be able to connect your Duo account to the Assistant and choose which devices Google Home can obtain calls.
You are now prepared to call your Google Home speakers with that. I can use “Hey Google, call Light Sleeper” in my own instance above and my Google Home Mini will start ringing with the usual ringtone of the Duo. Awkwardly, there is no way to respond to this call remotely. You need to tap one of the side buttons manually. Also, we’re not sure if, for that matter, there’s a way to understand who’s calling or even rejecting the call.
Unfortunately, the “Call Home” button in the Google Home app is not yet compatible with assistant speakers in our testing. Hopefully, in the future, this will change, as not everyone will necessarily want a smart display, while Google Home Minis (soon to be Nest Mini) will be a dozen.
The feature should only be available in the US, according to Android Police, but if the language settings of your phone are set to use “English (US),” you may still be able to access it.
Clearly, for Google Home speakers to feel well-integrated with Duo, Google has a long way to go, but the basis is certainly there for them to create something great.
