Google Home receives a new feature you won’t find on the Amazon Echo

Google is upgrading its two smart displays – the Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max – with a new feature it’s calling Ultrasound Sensing.

As the name suggests, Ultrasound Sensing harnesses ultrasound technology from the device’s speakers and microphones to determine whether a person is close or not.

If a user is near, the Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max will show pending notifications, touch controls to allow you to interact with things like timers and will display detailed weather forecasts and commute information.

When the owner steps away, either smart speaker will increase the font size of items on its display and will remove touch controls that are too far away to reach.

Ultrasound Sensing doesn’t need to leverage the front-facing camera of the Nest Hub Max to work (the regular Nest Hub doesn’t have a camera at all). However, if you have enrolled the hardware’s Face Match feature (that does use the sensor), the device will show personalised notifications when you get near.

Explaining the feature, Google said: “Ultrasound sensing takes you to another level of convenience by customising your favourite Google Nest display features depending on your distance from your device.

“Get a view of your cooking timer with easy-to-read numbers when you’re across the room. Have your touch controls automatically appear when you get close to your display. Whether you’re near or far, you can get more help and control at a glance when Ultrasound sensing is turned on.

“Ultrasound sensing uses your Google Nest device’s speakers and microphones to determine whether a person is approaching within approximately a 4ft range of the front of the device.

“Your device’s speaker will emit soft, inaudible, ultrasonic pulses. These pulses are reflected off of nearby objects in the room and the microphones detect these reflections.”

Google says Ultrasound Sensing is performed locally on the device, so you won’t have to worry about any data being pinged to the firm’s sprawling Mountain View campus.

Additionally, Google also iterates the frequency emitted by the Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max shouldn’t disturb any pets that have more sensitive hearing.

Google’s Ultrasound Sensing feature certainly isn’t a game-changer, but it’s definitely a neat addition that no connected home device from Amazon has.

Ultrasound Sensing is rolling out right now and will be enabled by default on your smart display. Turning it off is as simple as heading to the Google Home app and heading to Device Settings.

From there, find the Ultrasound Sensing tab and turn the slider off.

source: express.co.uk