LINE now has support for Google Assistant commands

Messaging apps will become all the more important as more people are staying at home to avoid the spread of the COVID-19 virus. We’ll probably see a lot of updates from the various apps to make life easier for its users. LINE has now announced support for Google Assistant commands so you will be able to send messages and get it to read received messages out loud to you without having to touch your smartphone. However, it only supports Japanese and English for now.

You will now be able to send LINE messages through voice commands on your Google Assistant. However, it is limited only to 1:1 chats and not group chats. It’s also understandably for text messages only. When you want to send a message, you simply have to say “Hey Google, send a LINE message to ____” and then add the name of your contact. For now, it’s just English and Japanese languages that are supported but hopefully, they will add more languages soon.

You can also now get LINE to read out your messages to you if you’re not able to scroll through your messages. Just say “Hey Google, read my LINE messages”. They didn’t indicate if it’s just unread messages that will be read out to you and in what order. But at least you have the option to get your digital assistant to update you if you’re cooking, washing clothes, or driving.

Google Assistant previously had support for other third-party apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. While LINE may not be the most popular in the U.S., they have a lot of users in Japan and in Asia, so this should be a pretty useful feature. As long as you have a smartphone or smart speaker running on Android 6.0 and above, then you should be able to use voice commands on your LINE app.

They also promised that they are working on more features. Hopefully, this will include support for Google Assistant on group chats and the ability to place calls from within the app.