Google’s latest round of low battery drain location services are pretty freakin’ efficient (they’re not that new, I think it’s been about a year now since everyone got them). I get no identifiable battery drain using my home as a trusted location for my tablet.

This is really a usability improvement, rather than a change to the way the Smart Lock operates. It should have essentially the same battery drain as the previous address-based locations.

From a broader perspective, I agree.

A couple of the posts so far have missed the mark on the audience this advice is for.

“Get along without you” should always be different from working optimally.

No... strictly speaking, what unlocks the device is your voice saying the hotword. Just because the default word is the same for all devices doesn’t mean that it’s not a combination of both. Just speaking around your device won’t wake it up, so the hotword is critical to the unlock process.

What?

Right, but technically I’d argue you must know the phone’s “hotword” in order to unlock it. That seems like it’d place it in a grey area - it’s biometric access, but it requires knowledge of the unlock phrase. I’m no lawyer, though.

Not at all. Moto’s implementation only lets you do an extremely limited subset of functions without having to unlock your phone using the PIN. The “Trusted” implementation of Google Play Services is an actual bypass of the lock screen.

I wonder if this will be covered under 5th amendment protection, or if it will be similar to fingerprint unlocking?

In my experience, there are a couple major things that can do that...

Shh, don’t talk about #4.

This is a really important point that I didn't look into before. The terms and conditions are here:

Yes, this applies to store cards (they're just normal credit cards). However, the number at which you have "too many" is probably a lot higher than you'd expect. Three is definitely not correct.

That's pretty good, probably well worth it if you're a heavy Amazon shopper.

My stupid CFLs won't die.

My stupid CFLs won't die.

"Literally" isn't a word that you should eliminate from your writing.

You still have your money invested, just not in stocks. Stocks are more volatile and crash faster/harder (of course, they also grow bigger/faster).

Ah... sorry, misunderstood the tone. Text-only communication claims another victim!

Did you even read what I wrote?