A major update is being released on Nest Hubs and third-party Google Assistant smart monitors with many interesting new features, many of which have been promised or released / leaked for several months. Now you can (well, if the features have been implemented in your unit) use your display as a sunrise alarm, set Google’s weather frog as a background, leave sticky notes for your family to read and more.
Sunrise alarm and new alarm UI
A new interface for setting alarms was created on smart screens. Instead of just asking Google to create an alarm, you can now customize everything about it on the screen, from the moment it rings, to the tone it plays, repetition days, nap duration and whether your morning routine should start later to determine .
In addition, there is a new special sunrise setting that allows your screen to slowly come to life in the morning to mimic the sun. You can choose how long the effect lasts, the smart lights that should follow suit and slowly light up along with the screen and whether or not a small sound should be played before it starts.
The video below shows all of these new settings when creating alarms.
Google Time Frog
Until now, you could choose from three different desktop backgrounds for your screen: Google Photos, art pieces curated by Google, and different clock designs in full screen. There is a fourth option now: the Google weather frog that we all like a lot on our phones.
A new card on the home screen should tell you about it, but you can also say “Ok Google, set up my frame” or swipe from bottom to top on the screen and go to Settings> Photo frame. The weather frog should be the fourth option there.
Instead of random photos or art, you will now see a full-screen graphic with the weather frog cooling or freezing or randomly having fun on lush green hills and sandy beaches. It changes with the time of day, so you’ll have a night scene after sunset and a lighter one during the day. The time and weather for the next two days are also displayed in the lower left corner. This will be your desktop screen, and any notes, reminders, calendar events or other notifications will appear on the right.
Family guide and sticky notes
Google has been teasing sticky notes on smart monitors for just over a year. The feature was released with limited capacity for some users, but remained unavailable for most. Google reiterated its promise again last November, announcing it as part of a new Family guide. Now, both have started to appear in some units.
On my Lenovo Smart Display, the new Family tab is active. Includes quick access to Family Bells, family sticky notes, Life360 follow-up and some fun questions and activities for kids. Domestic contacts, although a family-oriented resource, remain under the control of To communicate tab.
To add a new sticky note, you can tap the yellow card, but you can also trigger it by saying “Ok Google, add a familiar note” on any screen or even when the screen is in ambient mode. Make sure to mention family there, otherwise, Google will create a regular note that you’ll find in your connected note and list service (like Keep or Any.do).
Sticky notes appear on the room screen and on the main home screen for everyone to see, so no family member should miss them. But you may want to avoid sharing secret messages there if you receive guests. You can also access all of your family notes and delete the ones you made.
The new alarm interface along with sunrise alarms we must it will be active for most of you, but the other features appear to be being implemented as part of a server change. For registration, I am not running any display software on my Lenovo Smart Display and my unit is currently in software version 33.27.44.346118233 with Cast firmware version 1.52.239754. Other Android Police recorders with hubs and monitors in newer versions lack some of the features, so version numbers don’t seem to matter much.
However, smart monitors do not install updates until late at night or if they are restarted, so to check if there is a new version available for your unit and pending installation, you must disconnect and reconnect the device. You can get some of these options, otherwise patience is your friend.