You no longer have to ask your Google Smart Display when a photo was taken

What you need to know

• Google Smart Displays can show photos from Google Photos, but the information was limited.
• Previously, you had to ask Google Assistant to tell you when a photo was taken.
• Some photos are showing up with timestamp information, but not all of them.

Some Google Smart Display owners are seeing improvements to the information shown on their screens with Google Photos, according to a report on Android Police. Google Smart Displays pull photos from your Google Photos library, and previously, the display would only show basic name and photo album info. Now, some photos seem to be displayed with date information, including the date the photo was taken and a rough estimate of the time passed since then.

Artem over at Android Police confirms this on his own device, but says only 10-20% of the photos are being shown with the new info and he cannot determine why. There are many reasons this could be happening and, and it's also entirely possible that this is just a test Google is running. Google has not mentioned any changes on its official Photos blog.

Smart photo displays have come a long way, and Google Assistant has come even farther. While it's nice to see some improvements to the information offered, how long until Google starts using its prowess with image recognition to identify people and objects in the photos? It would be nice to see a bit more smarts on the Smart Display than just the date and the photographer.