Family Bell becoming increasingly a source of stress
Google’s Family Bell, which was rolled out as a reminder system for things such as virtual learning schedules and just reminding people to get out and do something, has become the primary source of Google hate in our family lately.
The issue is this – with an alarm, the smart assistants start and you can simply say “stop” and you’re done. Family bell not so much. Our last round of virtual classes for two children we had to have 8 family bells set up for two kids, and when they started going off we could get them to stop by saying “ok google, stop” – well, this seems to have gone away.
Saying “ok google, stop” now gets Google asking me what I want to stop. Saying stop doesn’t stop the family bell alarm, and when you’re dealing with trying to get a kindergartner logged into a virtual class while there’s a PE class going on and a Family Bell that refuses to stop chiming until it’s done, just not a great situation.
I’ve reached out to Google via feedback and Twitter, they seem to have no response on how to stop the noise. Half the time they think I’m wanting to cancel the schedule. No, I just want a command to stop the family bell from making noise for the next 25 or so seconds it will ring.
Family Bell held such promise, but being unable to silence it… it’s like the person who has the ringtone that starts “I’m sailing away” and they let it go through the entire song to “come sail away” before answering…
