Upcoming Google Home automation changes only impact phones

Earlier today we shared with you the confusing message that Google Home users reported hearing from their devices, warning them of some automation-related functionality going away next month. Worried about just how impactful those changes might be, we reached out to Google in the hopes of getting some clarification — and we’ve just heard back with new details on exactly what’s happening.

Starting about one day ago, Google Home users began sharing reports online of their devices delivering a concerning warning:

Just so you know, phone actions and automations will no longer be available starting in the first week of May.

But what exactly did that mean? We hadn’t been aware of any upcoming changes to automations, and considering how much work some of us have put into setting those up, news that we were about to lose some had users seriously worried.

At the time, we did home in on that “phone actions” language and wondered if this change might be limited to automations that specifically worked upon phone settings. And as it turns out, that’s exactly what Google was going for here. The company explains:

We wanted to clarify that we are not removing automations in May, we are removing phone-related actions in automations (i.e. check the battery level, set/unset do not disturb, and set the volume of your phone). Home automations will continue to work and any Home-related actions will remain part of your automations and fully functional.

Granted, any loss of functionality isn’t great — we love being able to do more things through automations, not fewer — but in the grand scope of things, the impact here seems much smaller than it could have been. And perhaps more importantly, the vast majority of our automations aren’t going to be impacted.