Google is planning on increasing the sensitivity of the ‘Hey Google’ feature of smart devices. The update is part of the data privacy commitment of Google.

Last September 2019, Google updated its customers’ about data privacy. The blog entry was a response to customers complaining about unintentional triggers of the Google Smart Assistant.

The customers complained when they found out that some of the conversations and queries heard by Google Assistant were transcribed.

According to the blog post, data and conversations are not automatically stored. It only happens when the user opts-in the Voice & Audio Activity (VAA) setting. Additionally, Google says that the storage of data is for the Assistant to recognize the voice of the user better.

Moreover, the company is promising to be more proactive in informing their users about the VAA setting. The company did not refute the fact about the transcription of queries and conversations. Instead, the company mentioned only 0.2 percent of all user audio snippets were transcribed.

Google has committed that it will continue to purge its stored data on users who have unintentionally opted in the VAA setting.

“Hey Google” sensitivity slider update

According to a Tweet by a Google reviewer, Google is slowly updating the sensitivity of the “Hey Google” trigger. He was able to figure out the update when he opened the back end programming of the Google Home app.

Finally, the Google Home app is about to add "Hey Google" sensitivity options for each Google Assistant device.https://t.co/a7R2pxLCLI pic.twitter.com/LJ6GpAj7CY — Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) April 21, 2020

The main feature of the update is the prevention of users from unintentionally calling for the Google Assistant feature. The slider will have three main settings. Sliding the marker to the left will make the Assistant least sensitive, sliding it to the right will make it most sensitive.

Google vs Amazon sales numbers

Google was number two in global sales of smart speakers last 2019. The fourth quarter of 2019 was promising for Google. It captured 25.3% of the global market share for smart speakers compared to its 19.1% overall in 2019.

The company attributes this rise in the number to the updated Nest mini and robust business-to-business deals with the company. Despite these good numbers for Google, Amazon still leads the market by owning 31.7% of the entire market share in 2019.

Possible setbacks for Google

The update rolled out by Google is crucial to its plans moving forward. The confidence of Google users must be restored first before the company can roll out their version of the Apple Pay.

Google will experience low adaption of the new Google Card if users have any doubt regarding Google’s storage and manipulation of their data.

Image courtesy of Mitchell Luo/ Unsplash