Google will be removing several features from its Google Assistant, including the ability to create location-based reminders, Ars Technica reported Friday (June 3).
The feature previously allowed users to set reminders through Google Assistant, such as a reminder to defrost an item when they arrive home, and would then ping the user when they walked through the door. Google will be sending out notifications about the demise of the feature, per the report.
“The option to create reminders for a certain location is going away soon,” Google wrote on a company help page. “You can still create reminders at a certain time and set routines for a location.”
A feature introduced in 2019 will also be going away — the ability to send reminders to other people. Ars Technica wrote that this feature was not often used, adding that users had to be in the Google “Family” ecosystem, set up with a family link, or share an Assistant device to use the feature.
Google has been making other changes to its technology as of late, with PYMNTS writing that the tech giant was merging its Google Meet and Google Duo features into a more consolidated communications service.
Read more: Google to Merge Google Meet and Duo Features
It plans to do away with Duo entirely, which was a video chat app rolled out after Google was unable buy WhatsApp in 2014. Meet, meanwhile, is a business video meeting product that got more traction during the pandemic when video calling became more important.
A report speculated that the Duo codebase would probably be the basis for Meet’s new version.
Google itself said the video calling features would not be going away. The company said the next few weeks would see Meet features added to the Duo app, letting users schedule video meetings or use video calling to connect with people.
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