Easy shopping and to-do lists using Google Keep and Google Voice

So the discussion in another thread about list/note taking coincided with something I read today. This is actually a feature I have been wanting for a while, that adds a decent amount of functionality to "OK, Google".

You can say "OK, google add X to my Y list" and it will automatically add it to said list using Google Keep. For example, say you ran out of milk. You can say, "OK, google add milk to my shopping list" and google will add milk to a list called Shopping in Google Keep. You can do this with to-do lists as well, "OK, google add clean the gutters to my to-do list" and it will add an item called "clean the gutters" to a list called "To-Do". You can also add multiple items at once: "Ok, google add milk, bread, egg and cheese to my shipping list" and it will add all of those. This part is a bit more buggy because sometimes it treats two items as one i.e. it adds "milk" + "bread" + "cheese and eggs" to the list.

The functionality is even more powerful than that. You can set both time and location based reminders to lists. For example, say you always forget to take out the trash when you visit your grandma. You could make a list called "Things to-do at grandmas" and add 'Take out the trash' to the list. Then set a location based reminder to grandma's house. You could also have a Costco list, a Kroger list, etc. and have location reminders for each of these. Then when you go to Kroger, everything you need to get from there just pops-up on your phone.

You can also share lists with others, such as "OK, google share my shopping list with my wife" and it will share the shopping list (including any reminders) to the person labeled your wife.

It is possible that this functionality has been around for a while and nobody knew about it.

You can also add things via other ways. For example, if you don't already have a list you can tell it to create a shopping list and it will ask you the items saying "whats next" between each item until you say something like nothing or that's it. If you already have a list you can say "Add the "following items" to my shopping list" and it will behave similarly.

Thanks - that sounds very handy.

An example, of how the location based reminders looked. I did a quick test using HF tools (which frustratingly stopped selling the 3M headlight restorer kit).

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...530a9dcf41.jpg

I could see this feature being useful for people like CitBBN in sales, to set reminders to do stuff when they visit a place.

You can also do the reminders on the format "OK, Google. Remind me the next time I'm at Bob's to get my hammer back" and it will accomplish something similar.


Some, but not all, of these features are available on Apple too using Hey, Siri and the reminders app.