Google is making its own Assistant a lot less useful over the coming days. For some reason known only to Google, its handy location-based reminder feature is leaving us forever.
A location-based reminder was a useful feature for those that needed reminding when arriving at a certain location. For example, you could ask Google Assistant to remind you to take the chicken out of the freezer when you get home. You’d get a notification once you arrived home, and nobody would be in trouble for forgetting to defrost the chicken.
Soon, however, you’ll have to remember that yourself.
Why Google, why?
Google hasn’t yet offered any reasons why this feature is getting the axe. And they probably never will. Looking at Google’s support article for reminders offers little information. Go figure.
“The option to create reminders for a certain location is going away soon. You can still create reminders at a certain time and set routines for a location.”
Google suggests users switch to routines for location-based reminders. This would be fine – if it wasn’t a ‘routine’. Creating a routine for a basic reminder seems to be counter-intuitive since the routine will want to suggest the reminder daily. This is handy for when you need it, but not when you just want a one-off reminder about a basic task.
This isn’t the only feature that’s leaving Google’s repertoire soon. Sending someone else a reminder with Google Assistant is not going to be possible in the near future. This one at least makes a little sense from Google’s point of view. Most people barely ever used the feature, due to it being too complicated and a lot of work to get it set up.
Even so, there is probably a big chunk of people who will be upset about this. Despite low usage, there’s no reason why Google couldn’t just leave the feature be. Unless they were working on a new feature – which is possible.
A possible replacement
If Google were working on a new feature to replace its reminder feature on Google Assistant, it’d be easier to forgive them on this one. While we have no official word on an upgraded feature coming any time soon, 9to5Google seems to think one could be coming.
Last year, 9to5Google noticed a ‘Memory’ feature that Google was reportedly working on. This would let one save web clippings, reminders and a whole host of other useful features.
This could be a planned update to give us back location-based reminders, but we’ll have to wait and see what comes from Google in the coming months.
For now, you’ll just have to go without location-based prompts. If you’re a Samsung or iPhone user then it’s possible to set these up through each phone’s built-in assistant. For Samsung users, that would be Bixby – here’s how to do it. For those on the iPhone, you’ll use Siri to help you out – here’s how.
At the moment, Google hasn’t given a date on when these features were disappearing. You’ll just have to make the most of it while it lasts.