Google is killing location-based reminders

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson)

Google is stirring the pot again and removing helpful features from users for no discernible reason. Through various channels, the company announced that reminders for Google Assistant will soon be a lot less useful.

First up, Google Assistant is losing the ability to create location-based reminders. 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.