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Google Is Killing Location-Based Reminders (arstechnica.com) 34

Posted by BeauHD from the no-reason-given dept.
The Google Assistant is losing the ability to create location-based reminders. Ars Technica reports: These were incredibly useful commands you could tell Google Assistant, like, "remind me to take the trash out when I get home," and your phone, which is always tracking your location, would ping you when you walked in the door. You could also say things like, "remind me to buy milk next time I'm at Walmart," and it would just work. Google is sending out notifications telling users the feature is dead. A message on a Google support page says: "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." Suggesting routines as a replacement is a ludicrous suggestion, since routines are, well, routine, and want to repeat after a set period of time. They also are meant to trigger smart-home automation or alarm clocks; they aren't simple notifications.

Another reminder feature getting the ax is a fairly new one, probably dying due to a lack of usage. In 2019 Google announced the ability to send reminders to other people. Actually doing this was pretty difficult, though. You would have to either be in the Google "Family" ecosystem and have them set up in the family link or have that person be someone you share an Assistant device with, like a roommate. It's not clear why the company is suddenly gutting a useful and easy-to-use feature. [...]
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Google Is Killing Location-Based Reminders More

Google Is Killing Location-Based Reminders

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  • Anything that sets location tracking to always on is a security risk. I imagine that Google wants to encourage location tacking to be always on as it can increase data that can be sold. And used for location specific ads. I notice that Meta is pushing its advertising platform in terms of location based ads, so maybe this is Google fighting back

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It never required location tracking, it was done locally on the phone. If you turned off location history (i.e. tracking) it still worked.

  • Maybe this is a prelude to Google abandoning tracking altogether. Sometimes it's nice to dream.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by c-A-d ( 77980 )

      Abandoning visible tracking. Google is still going to track you covertly. Google doesn't want anyone else to think it's okay for them.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Do you have any evidence of this? I've been asking for evidence of Google secretly violating people's privacy for over a decade now, and nobody seems to have any.

        It would be illegal in Europe so I'd like to submit a complaint to the regulator, but I need some actual evidence. They don't accept innuendo and speculation I'm afraid.

        • I'd say it's more like Google accidentally violating people's privacy due to the sheer volume of crawling it undertakes. Really what Google is more interested are patterns, and you won't get that by targeting individuals.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jrumney ( 197329 )
      They are not abandoning location tracking, just the ability of the user being tracked to get something useful out of that tracking for themselves.
  • Although creepy. If I knew it existed I might have used it.

    • Although creepy. If I knew it existed I might have used it.

      Google's working on a feature to remind you about things you don't know about.
      Of course, they're going to need to collect some data to know what you don't know ... :-)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by vanyel ( 28049 )

      Indeed - I've often *wanted* this feature, but didn't think it existed. It doesn't have to be privacy invasive if the location info stays on the phone.

    • I use location-based reminders on my iPhone a lot - it's very handy.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by aitikin ( 909209 )

      I used to use this regularly. About 6 months ago it started being less than reliable, but it was great to have a reminder when I set foot in the grocery store to grab something that I normally wouldn't need or the like.

  • They're not killing off the feature, they're just monetizing it.

    Now, if I want to remind my roommate to do the dishes or feed the cat, I just send him a micro-advertisement on a schedule.

    • "They're not killing off the feature, they're just monetizing it."

        And where did you get this. Google isn't doing "take out the trash, and don't forget to pick up a box of Glad trash bags", Google is killing off the feature, period.

        I hope that this will start off a trend of DIY Smarts, that does not depend on someone else's mainframe and companies can't use it to track you.

  • ...remind me to stop using Google assistant when I get home

  • Only to have it taken away a bit at a time.

    "ocation-based reminders. Ars Technica reports: These were incredibly useful commands you could tell Google Assistant, like, "remind me to take the trash out when I get home,"

      Well fuck you Google as always. You are just a money grubbing woke DMCA scardey scaredy pocket pussy boy. I hope a real company will take your place and give us the stuff that we actualy want.

    P.S. Your search engine is shit.

    • In the meantime, I would use qPython and a script that would make that announcement whenever I arrive at the range of LAT/LONG coords that my house falls in to.

        Not very elegant but doable, and no connection required except for a GPS signal.

  • maintaining the feature didn't make sense for maybe a handful of people who used the feature regularly.

  • Your phone always knows where it is. There is no reason to use a cloud service that needs to upload your location and then send that information back to a piece of software like "location reminder" to operate correctly. This software would work just fine without the need for Google to get involved at all. They are killing it off for one reason, and one reason only. Google was storing your location and then selling it off. My hunch, someone discovered this, were paid to keep quite, and now Google shuts it do

    • If you told people 30 years ago that a light switch has to send a request to a server farm that could be halfway around the world so that server can send a command back to the lamp that is in the same room as the switch to tell it to turn on, people would say that you're insane.

        The idea is still insane.

      • Reminds me of that episode in Big Bang Theory where the guys were all excited about sending a signal through the Internet, around the world, and back to turn their light on in the house. I remember thinking how stupid that actually was. IoT devices doing the same thing today, as you pointed out, is just as stupid. X10 devices have been doing this since the 70's using the AC lines in your house as a pseudo network. Heck, back in the early 80's we even had an X10 controller connected to our TRS-80 Color Compu

        • "Reminds me of that episode in Big Bang Theory where the guys were all excited about sending a signal through the Internet, around the world, and back to turn their light on in the house. I remember thinking how stupid that actually was"

            They were very forward thinking. :-\

        • "X10 devices have been doing this since the 70's using the AC lines in your house as a pseudo network."

          Heheh, I had one of those too, with the digital alarm clock/timer controller. Used it to wake up for school with an X-10 module connected to a portable B&W TV set and an NES deck so I could wake up to the Metroid intro music instead of the shrill buzzer of a regular alarm clock.

          "Heck, back in the early 80's we even had an X10 controller connected to our TRS-80 Color Computer to control appliances aroun

    • They're replacing a backend without feature parity. Happens all the time unfortunately.

  • The Lord GOOGLE giveth, the Lord GOOGLE taketh away.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by io333 ( 574963 )

      The Lord GOOGLE is all knowing, all seeing.

    • People generally get fed up with their overlording king and overthrow him. Especially if that king does everything to be remote and faceless.

        This is the chief reason for the American Revolution, why people leave religion, and will be the reason people will go with DIY solutions and/or demand laws giving people the right to not have their stuff cloud dependent ala the right to repair bill.

    • Mostly taketh away.

  • It's gotten so intrusive. And it's performance has gone to hell. It took it 45 seconds to create an alarm at 12:50pm.
    The rest of the phone is fine so it's not a virus. It gave me an error message that indicates it sends even simple text like that over the internet to be translated to text. Damn thing feels creepy.

    I preferred it when it understood and created alarms in a few seconds. I felt like it was being done locally on my phone.

    While I'm at it, Google voice typing has gone to hell over the last

  • When Google introduced this feature, I tried it out, asking it to remind me about several things when I get home, and I also tried attaching reminders to other locations. When I go to view my location reminders, they are all there. They just never actually alerted me of the things they were supposed to remind me about. What good is a reminder that you have to go look up?

  • I can setup reminders based on location via my iphone. I guess this is will be another apple-only feature.

    It's odd that google would kill off that feature. I can't see how it costs much to support it as it seems to be all in
    the phone. I guess for those who want to turn on lights when they get home in the dark (in the winter) or download
    a new playset to their car's audio when they goto their car will have keep an iphone around for this feature.

  • Geospatial queries that test if a lat/long is inside a complex geographic area are fairly expensive. You have to test if that coordinate is inside a possibly multi-vertex polygon geometric shape, and do it reliably (without false alarms) given GPS lack of accuracy in city canyons. Makes sense that Google would drop a feature that wouldn't work well and would need significant resources to work at all.

  • The most recent bizarre whim has been to downgrade the shopping list, I could add things using the google nest stuck to the side of the fridge ( I Know, OK) and then look up the accumulated items when I was in a shop, very handy! Now the pictures of the items, the appropriate suggestions and category sorting have all gone away, it's just a VERY plain and function free checklist.
    WHY, Google?

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