Vision Ireland InfoLine 1800 911 250
Make a Referral Donate
Vision Ireland » Press Releases & Blogs » Technology News

How to set up Google Assistant on your Android Phone

Google Assistant open on Android smartphone

by Joe Lonergan

If you are an Android user you might want to enable Google Assistant so you can use your voice to perform a number of tasks such as sending text messages, making calls, or checking the weather.

So how do we turn on Hey Google?
Sometimes this is a difficult question to answer because there are so many different versions of Android phones out there, so we will go through a couple of ways you can turn on the Google Assistant.

First what you will need. An Android smartphone with a recent version of the Android operating system as any of the older phones with Android 6 or older will most likely not be able to run Google Assistant. You will also need a Google account.

The most common way to turn on Hey Google on an Android smart phone is the following:

  1. On your android phone open the Google app
  2. On the top right tap your profile or initials
  3. Tap on Settings/Voice
  4. Tap on Voice Match, while in here you can turn on Hey Google
  5. After you turn on Hey Google, just follow the prompts to set up Voice Match so Google Assistant can recognise when you say Hey Google
  6. In set up, the Google Assistant will ask you some common questions to learn your voice like “Hey Google what’s the weather like?” or “Hey Google set a timer for ten minutes”
  7. It will let you know when it is satisfied it has learned your voice and then set up is finished

Another quick option to set up Hey Google is the following:
On your device, touch and hold the home button or say, “Hey Google.” If the Google Assistant is off, you’ll be asked to turn it on. Then ask a question or say a command.

Turn Google Assistant on lock screen on or off

You can get hands-free help from Google Assistant while your Android phone is locked.

  1. On your Android phone or tablet, say “Hey Google, open Assistant settings”
  2. Under “All settings,” tap Lock screen
  3. Turn Allow Assistant on lock screen on

Things to try after you have successfully set up the Google Assistant:

  • “Hey Google Call Mary”
  • “Hey Google text Mary”, then follow the prompts from the assistant to send the text message
  • “Hey Google play a classical music video on YouTube”
  • “Hey Google set an alarm for 7 am”

If you are an Android user, we hope you find having the Google Assistant helpful and if you have any trouble setting it up, please contact the NCBI Labs team.