Did you know that you can change the default input method for the Google Assistant? Thanks to the advent of keyboard support, you can now either set voice or keyboard as the dominant option.

The immediate benefit to doing this isn’t clear at first, because you still have to tap the keyboard button in Google Assistant to get it to show after you’ve changed defaults. But there’s still a really good reason to do it if you don’t use voice: it won’t automatically trigger your microphone.

This is useful for the many moments you want to open Google Assistant while listening to audio in the background, as the microphone activation tends to pause other background audio as it waits for your initial command. Now, you get no interruption.

We’d probably prefer the Google Assistant to immediately open the keyboard, too, but that’s just another point of feedback to send off to Google. For now, this is still a nice option you’ll want to consider changing if you want to ensure your microphone doesn’t interfere with anything else you may be doing on your phone. Find the option in the Google App under Settings > Google Assistant.

[via Reddit]