Parents now have full control over their child’s Google Assistant interactions
Thebest Google Assistant smart speakersand smart displays are meant for all members of your family, including your kids. Unlike Google TV and Android, though, Google does not provide parental controls for Assistant interactions with kids. The company is looking to change that by rolling out new features that will make it safer for your kids to interact with Assistant.
Over the coming weeks, parental controls forGoogle Assistantwill be added to Google Home, Family Link, and Google Assistant mobile apps. it’s possible to also access these settings by saying, “Hey Google, open Assistant settings,” and then navigating to parental controls.
The controls will allow you to select the music and video services your child can access on Assistant-powered smart displays, set up a Downtime schedule to limit device usage, prevent them from making phone calls, and more. Google Assistant can also be set to answer only the basic questions or all of them, with the latter including mature content. Further, you can limit the Assistant devices your children can use with parental controls and restrict them from listening to news and podcasts.
To deliver simplified answers to kids, Google notes in itsannouncementthat it is adding Kids Dictionary to Assistant. When the voice assistant detects your child’s voice using Voice Match, it will respond to their query about a definition with a more age-appropriate answer that they can understand better.
Lastly, Google Assistant is gaining four kid-friendly voices. Your child can say, “Hey Google, change your voice” to get the assistant to switch to a voice they are bound to like more. The company claims these voices have been made using diverse accents to represent different communities and speaking styles.
These new parental control options will only appear for your child’s Google account that’s managed using Family Link. You must also have Voice Match enabled across your Assistant devices for some of the features to work.
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