Google Assistant’s worst feature is still having to say ‘Hey Google’

Recently, a few of us at The Verge who use Google Assistant devices in our homes started complaining about the whole “Hey Google / OK Google” thing. We all had the same experience: you’d say something like, “Hey Google, set a timer for 12 minutes,” and the expected “Timer set” response would come from a device somewhere else in the house.
In my home, we have that problem all the time. We have three Google Assistant devices (not including our phones), an