Google Assistant

Google Assistant can now support bathtubs and faucets

Kyle Bradshaw | Nov 6 2019 - 3:56 pm PT

Piece by piece, the Google Assistant has been working its way into new parts of our homes. The latest additions to the Google Assistant’s lineup are the bathtub and faucet.

For every kind of object in your home that the Google Assistant can connect with, Google has created a fairly standardized way for developers to work with that object. This ranges from common smart home items like light bulbs to more obscure ones like robot mops. Today, Google has added another two items to the list, with an apparent focus on improving the Assistant experience in the bathroom — faucets and bathtubs.

Smart bathtubs, as far as the Google Assistant is concerned, are fairly simple devices, with their main capabilities being to “fill” to your desired level, then later drain. Surprisingly, there do not seem to be any sort of temperature adjustments available. Faucets, on the other hand, are a bit more complicated.

Faucets can dispense liquids in various quantities and presets.

Faucets may have various modes and each mode has its own related settings. These are specific to the faucet and are interpreted in a generalized form.

Presumably these “modes” are to allow for things like temperature control, or kitchen faucets with built-in water filters.

As for when you should expect to see such a Google Assistant bathtub or faucet for your smart home in stores, you may not have much waiting to do. Kohler and Delta have each already made some headway, offering smart versions of their products through their respective apps. It shouldn’t take much to allow these devices to connect directly with the Google Assistant, without the extra app.