Your Phone Will Become A Smart Display With Google Assistant Ambient Mode

The new feature called Ambient Mode on Google Assistant has been teased since September when Google gave us the details of it, regarding how exactly the feature will get its way into the smartphone. As expected, the smartphone coming along with it will be more useful while being charged: users can handle their phones as usual, such as controlling smart home devices, playing music, surfing Google photo images and more. According to Ars Technica, Xiaomi and Nokia have been the few first brands to have Ambient Mode installed. Next week, the feature will get access to Sony, as well as an OEM named Transsion.

Let’s take a look at the video below to see how the feature gets the tasks done with just a few clicks even when the phone is connecting to a charger.

Arvind Chandrababu, Android Product Manager at Google, also mentioned about the deep integration between it and the Android OS, claiming that the company has been working on a couple of similar features, especially which is built for OEM devices.

If enabled, a lock-screen will display the time over a Google Photos slideshow. Once users tap it through, they’ll see a notification board that shows calls, messages, weather, appointments, and so on. The bottom row is where icons for activating the ‘Do not disturb’ mode, controlling smart lights sit on, and enabling a number of other functions.

Any phone owners who haven't yet to get their own screen lock implementations while charging the phone may appreciate this experience a lot. Some select devices running on Android 8 and higher will soon be able to catch on the feature, according to Chandrababu.