A Guide to Setting Up and Using Bixby Routines on Samsung Galaxy Devices

Samsung is taking the Google Assistant with the Bixby digital assistant on mobile devices, smart TVs and Tizen-powered smartwatches. Bixby not only focuses on answering user questions, but also handles offline tasks on the phone. Samsung offers a very neat Bixby Routine add-on that performs several functions on the device based on voice commands.

What is a Bixby routine

Samsung’s Bixby routines are your predefined set of rules that trigger whenever a certain phrase or command is said to the digital assistant. It follows the “If this then that” format of things.

Bixby will perform actions based on your settings using rules or commands. For example, you can set up Bixby to share your calendar events every morning or show them whenever you request. Read on to find out how to set it up.

Where are the Bixby routines

Bixby Routines is part of the Bixby digital assistant. You can access it from the Bixby home menu. Long press the power key on your phone to wake up the Bixby assistant.

In the bottom menu, tap on the little Home icon and it will open the main Bixby menu. Now tap on the hamburger menu at the top left and select Quick Orders from the next menu.

By default, Bixby offers several Bixby commands out of the box. You can use them and edit tasks or create one from scratch. Here, we’ll create a Bixby command from the main screen and add tasks based on our preferences.

Create a Bixby command

Now that you know what the Bixby command is and how to access it, let’s create a Bixby routine.

Step 1: Go to Bixby Home and open Quick Controls.

2nd step: Tap the + icon in the top right corner.

Step 3: First, you need to specify a quick command or phrase. We added “What’s Up” as a quick order.

Step 4: From the What Bixby does menu, tap Add command option.

Step 5: Here you can see all the apps that support Bixby commands.

For this article, we will be using the combination of calendar, email, time, and weather.

Step 6: Select Calendar and press “View my schedule” from the next menu.

Step 7: Go back and select the Gmail app. Tap “View my emails in Gmail”.

Each time, you will need to select Add Command Option to continue adding commands to the phrase.

Step 8: Select Date and time, then press “What time is it?” action.

Step 9: Now select the Weather Channel app and you will see that the command we want to use is not listed here.

You can select Type it at the bottom and use the built-in keyboard to type a custom command. We typed the query “What’s the weather like today” for the Weather Channel app.

In the main menu, you will see the last Bixby sentence and the actions associated with it. You can still press the x mark and delete commands or change the position of the command.

For example, you want Bixby to announce the time first, then schedule, emails, and weather. Drag and drop the “What time is it” command to the top, and you’re ready to use the Save button at the bottom.

Return to the Home screen. Wake up Bixby using the side button or using the “Hey Bixby” voice command. Say the command “What’s New” and Bixby will perform actions based on your defined commands. Take a look at the screenshots and you’ll see Bixby in action with the current time, today’s schedule for the day, Gmail, and today’s weather details.

Here are some other Bixby routines you can implement in your life.

Add a phrase “Good Night” and Bixby will do the following.

• Activate do not disturb
• Disable AoD (always displayed)
• Set the wake-up call tomorrow at 8:00 a.m.
• Activate localization
• What will the weather be like tomorrow?
• Read tomorrow’s program

Add a phrase “I’m driving” and Bixby will take the following actions.

• Activate bluetooth
• Turn off Wi-Fi in settings
• Listen to the Commute playlist

Remove Bixby commands

If you no longer need Bixby commands, open the Bixby home page and go to Quick commands> My commands. Tap the three-dot menu in the upper right corner and select Delete. Select the orders you want to delete and confirm your decision.

Use Bixby like a pro

Bixby is an integral part of the Samsung ecosystem. And it’s good to see that the Korean giant is taking a different path to standing out in the crowd with a useful Bixby Routines feature. Tell us how you plan to use Bixby commands on your Galaxy device.