Here’s how to find out when the Google Assistant is listening to your voice

It still happens too often that smart Assistant speakers are activated without you having asked for it. In most cases this goes unnoticed. Google does offer an option in the Home settings to play sound when activating the Assistant. That’s how you turn it on.

Google Assistant

For Google’s Google Assistant speakers – and with some manufacturers that integrate the Google Assistant in their speakers – they switch on the characteristic LED lights under the fabric housing during a speech activation. That way you can recognize such Assistant speakers as soon as they are switched on. In cases where the speaker is in sight, this can certainly be useful. If the speaker is out of sight, you may not be aware that the Assistant is ready to process your voice command – or that it is not ready.

This can lead to you giving a voice command to the Assistant, while afterwards it turns out that your voice command was not received by Google’s digital assistant at all. At the same time, it could happen that the Assistant is activated at times when you don’t know it, but you haven’t asked for it either. Fortunately, Google has a solution in its Home app that works for all Assistant speakers from the search giant. The setting allows you to play a sound when you activate the Assistant.

‘Assistant activation tune’

Setting the start or end tune of the Assistant speakers is done via the Google Home app. You probably have that app installed on your phone if you have an Assistant speaker at home. If you do not or no longer have the app installed, you can download the Home app from the Google Play Store via this link. Is the app installed and is the Assistant speaker linked to the app? Then it’s time to follow the steps below.

1. Open the Google Homeapp
2. Click on the Assistant speaker what you’re going to set the tune for
3. Then click on the top right gear icon
4. Then navigate to Accessibility
5. Choose under audio in front of Play start sound and/or Play end sound

Every time you now activate the Assistant speaker with the Hey Google hotword, a short and recognizable tune is played first. In this way, even if the speaker is out of sight, you can recognize whether you can give a voice command, or whether the speaker has accidentally activated. In the event that the Assistant activates too often, you can adjust the sensitivity – although this currently only works with speakers set in English (US). You can read here how to do that.