Following the Launch of Siri by Apple in 2011, Google debuted Google Assistant in 2016, after a brief romance with Google Now which was pretty limited in functionality.
Google Assistant has evolved over time to become arguably the most reliable personal virtual assistant out there over the years, but one thing users have not been able to do in all that time is change the wake word used to initiate interactions with the assistant from the official “Hey Google” or “Ok Google”.
According to Google ,users have not indicated that much interest in wanting to change the wake word, but we believe it’s more likely because how much more error prone that would make the assistant.
Unfortunately, the only walkaround for changing the wake word is no longer functional as the app, Open Mic+, which used to make it possible has been abandoned by the developer.
So, if you’re looking for how to change Google Assistant wake word, there isn’t a way presently, but it’s still possible to trigger your Google Assistant with a few phrases that sound similar to the official ones. A few of those are “Hey Boo Boo” (a personal favourite), “cocaine noodles”, “OK, cool” so why not have fun with those while we wait for something official from Google.
Google Rolling Out “Quick Phrases”
On a positive note, XDA-Developers recently discovered what seems to be the next best thing. Google is rolling out “Quick Phrases”, which would allow you to interact with Google Assistant without using the wake words.
When it’s turned on from the app settings, your assistant would listen for predefined phrases/words depending on the context. For example, you would be able to respond to incoming calls by saying either “answer” or ”decline”, or snooze an alarm with just the word “snooze” among others.
Let’s hope the complete rollout happens spoon, and it doesn’t end up as a Google Pixel exclusive feature.