Use the Google Assistant on Your New Pixel 2 to Take a Hands-Free Thanksgiving Family Photo

When the family comes to your home for the holidays, you will probably be asked to take a group photo or two. If you have a Google Pixel 2 (or 2 XL), you can use it to take pictures using just your voice. You no longer need to rush into the frame or assign the role of photographer to your strange uncle’s new girlfriend.

Create an always-on Google Assistant

First, you need to tweak your Google Assistant a bit and configure it to respond every time you say “Ok Google.” You also need to set Google Assistant as your default assistant for this to work.

Go to Settings> Apps & notifications> Default apps> Help & voice input. There, click the settings icon next to the Assist section of the app. Click “Ok Google” and enable the option “Say” Ok Google anytime “. Then your Pixel 2 will have the Google Assistant always on, ready to take a photo whenever you want.

To prevent disgusting kids from ordering your voice assistant to kick rocks, turn on the “Trustworthy Voice” option so that your smartphone will only unlock when it hears your muted tones. You can retrain your smartphone to respond to your voice by clicking “Retrain Voice Model” at the bottom of the page.

What to say to take a picture

It turns out that Google only responds to a select few phrases if you want it to take your photo. Of course, you will need to open with “Hey Google” or “Ok Google” to bring up the Google Assistant.

After that, the word “take a selfie” will activate the front camera and give you a three-second countdown before it takes a photo. Take Photo will use the rear camera.

You can edit the countdown by asking it to take a photo in as many seconds as you need (you have a maximum of 30 seconds) so that you can take the desired position. Unfortunately, you cannot set up automatic capture of portrait mode photos.

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