Posted by grigy 2 days ago
Currently updates from the schools are spread over multiple sources: paper notes, email, sms, "news" and "calendar" in school app (which are not kept in sync), and Facebook. Different schools use different apps.
Additionally the channels are often noisy, with messages about groups my kids don't belong to, and "helpful tips" like how to pack healthy lunchboxes. These notifications come in during the day while I'm working, get dismissed due to the low SNR and then the useful ones often slip through unnoticed.
Definitely an area that is ripe for disruption, but as others here have commented, I don't feel confident about Google being the provider.
We are running a small trial group right now to optimize the experience and see how people and real non-tech families react to this.
We are a tiny startup and our business is not data nor customer addiction. We will simply be charging our customers and put them at the center of our focus. We are honestly trying to understand what can genuinely be helpful to families and make all the innovations that we are seeing available to them.
This is not targeted to the HN crowd; yes, you can hack your assistant with a bunch of Claude/Codex automations and be happy! 100% possible and also fun to do. This is for everyone else that has no time/skills/intention to sit in front of a laptop for this.
I saw the post yesterday but decided to not write right away and wait for the post to slow down as we are supposed to be in a closed trial since each user costs us money right out of our pockets and there is no monetization yet.
But if someone is genuinely interested and wants to give it a try and keep in touch, here is the link:
https://empla.io/ai-employees/family-assistant
We are actively rolling out features and optimizing the experience all the time, so pardon the rough edges!
Any thoughts on the subject as a parent with a child in school in the modern day? Or were you just eager to throw out a “back in my day”?
It's sort of confusing though because all schools for children are by definition childcare, and you try to diminish the public variant.
how about when a kid has 7 classes, and each teacher says to just check the google doc within google classroom where they each type daily notes into unstructured tables that are each different for each class oh and parents dont actually have their own google classroom login they are just supposed to log into the kids account.
Also, family management is so *fundamentally broken* that it's disheartening and almost laughable that priority is ai over global acl management. There should not be a separate parental control dashboard for roblox, fortnite, instagram, tiktok, etc etc etc etc. Every app should be REQUIRED to expose all parental controls in a standard protocol upstream to identity management that is manageable by multiple management accounts in a family unit. I should be able to go into settings, click a kid, turn off chat for a child, and it instantly updates on my partners phone without needing an account at the service itself to manage it and knowing the ins and outs of how their parental controls are evolving weekly. Family settings should exist ABOVE any single user account and apply to all accounts to any service linked within the family.
Cause it's Google.
I don't use new Google services. They've shut down too many that I loved and used daily.
: /
With pi.dev I use it in a container https://git.jeena.net/jeena/agent-container and selectively give it access to Firefox via https://github.com/ThinkerYzu/foxmcp when I want it to help me with something in the browser (doing taxes, applying for things online in a foreign language, etc.)
Seriously who wrote off on such an awful name?
This was the original launch announcement from 2025: https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/models-and-research/go...
Waiting for CCONE next
Go is already hard to look up, imagine trying to find help for "CC" of all things. Seriously, do they work on search engines at all over there? :)
In the coming age of voice AI ubiquity its prime phonetic property and now it’s theirs to lose.
Oh and having your brand as your wake word might have some downsides… while I’m sure they’ve gained plenty from it they didn’t deserve[1]. In any case I think they would rather move past it for the next generation of home assistant devices.
Prediction: Christmas 2026 will have multiple audio agent products around the tree. Maybe they will just plug in and join the conversation?
1. “Accidental” ‘Ok, Google’ during TV adverts that trigger a wake and audio sample. Ostensibly for closed loop ad tracking. Also, getting to listen into a lot of IRL brand mentions that weren’t a voice command.