Shortly after it was teased just a few days ago, Google is rolling out a sorely-needed feature for the Google Home smart speaker: multiple user support.
Arriving today in the US and coming to the UK "in the coming months," Google Home will now support up to six different users. The speaker will track each user's personal itinerary, music playlists, commute, and even flight details.
Previously, the Google Assistant-backed speaker could only support one user at a time, making it a hassle to personalize the experience without messing up another person's settings.
The real kicker isn't just that Google Home can now keep tabs on more than one person, but that it can do so instantly by recognizing individual voices.
When setting up multiple users on Google Home, the most recent version of the Google Home app will ask to hear you say "OK Google" and "Hey Google" a few times when linking your account to the smart speaker.
Once that's complete, Google Home's neural network gets a feel for your voice, allowing it to know it's you asking about the weather, and not your spouse, kid, roommate, or a well-trained parrot.
Though Amazon Echo has had multiple user support for a while now, it requires users to actively ask the Alexa-powered smart speaker to switch accounts. By knowing who's talking by voice alone, Google Home has made a big step forward in staying competitive, saving us precious time in the process.
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