The most common thing with most digital assistants today is that they all are linked with a hotword that you need to probably shout in order to get the job done. Be it, Siri for Apple devices, Google Assistant for Android or Alexa, they only get active when users summon them with the right keyword.
However, it seems Google wants to change the way you trigger the Google Assistant on your phone. After digging into the codes of the Google Android app, folks at XDA-Developers have found out that Google will let users trigger the Google Assistant by simply pressing the power button.
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In the past as well, Google has tried multiple ways to invoke the Google Assistant to improve the user experience as summoning the digital assistant in a noisy environment had a high rate of failures. As a result, we saw some phones came with a squeeze the sides option to trigger the Google assistant while some OEMs introduced a dedicated button to do so, however, these didn’t become commonplace.
On the other hand, some Chinese smartphone makers, instead of adding another button or mechanism, had been using the power button to wake the Google Assistant and the same is now being adopted by Google as a core feature. The report from Xda developers suggests that this new feature will not be limited to Android 12 and even devices running on Android 11 or previous versions may get this feature, which obviously is good news for most.
The report also suggests that the feature can be tried on some Pixel devices running on the Android Developer Preview. On Android 12, this feature can be found under Settings > Apps & Notifications > Assistant. In case you’re on Android 11 or below, the option will show up in the Apps & Notification section of the Settings app.
Additionally, it is also rumoured that Google will add the double-tap gesture in Android 12. It has been reported that Google has already tested the Double-Tap to summon Google Assistant with Android 11 but may only introduce it with the latest Android operating system.
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