The Fireside Helper provided a method for Fireside Show customers to textual content or e-mail customer support to add a listing of occasions on their behalf, like bulk importing a college calendar price of occasions. However as of March 19, the characteristic has additionally been built-in into the Fireside cellular app.
Fireside Show, the fashionable household administration software that features as a shared digital calendar and to-do listing tracker, used to incorporate a characteristic referred to as “Fireside Helper” immediately within the 27-inch pill. After I reviewed the Fireside Show to see if the system was definitely worth the hype (and the $699 price ticket, typically on sale for $599), I discovered the characteristic odd. You may assume that the “Helper” can be a direct line to customer support help, however urgent the “Helper” choice solely provided a pop-up giving customers a telephone quantity and e-mail tackle in the event that they wished AI to bulk add a listing of occasions. You can ship the Helper an image of your child’s faculty calendar, for instance, and the AI would import the information onto your Fireside calendar. I believed little of the characteristic since then—personally, the very last thing I’d need is for AI to bulk add one thing like a college calendar and clog my calendar—however when Fireside moved the characteristic into the cellular app, I grew to become curious once more.
The place to seek out Fireside Helper within the cellular app
To make use of the Fireside Helper within the cellular app, begin by updating the Fireside app in your system. It’s possible you’ll not even be capable to use your Fireside app with out having this newest replace: After I opened the app, a full-screen notification prompted me to replace to the most recent model. It was the primary time I used to be ever compelled to replace the app; prior to now, I manually up to date the app for bug fixes and newer options, like the power to replace Routines immediately from my telephone or to add customized to-do lists.
Credit score: Jordan Calhoun / Lifehacker
After updating the app, the Fireside Helper could be discovered as a chat field icon on the top-right of the display, subsequent to the notification bell. It is an intuitive spot for a “Helper” characteristic, and a lot better positioned than earlier than: Previous to this newest replace, Fireside Helper had a outstanding tab on the Fireside Show proper subsequent to the Calendar, Lists, and Routines menus. For the reason that replace, my Fireside Show pill pushed a pop-up announcement that learn, “Fireside Helper has moved!” with an evidence that their AI calendar companion now lives on the app.
Credit score: Jordan Calhoun / Lifehacker
Find out how to use Fireside Helper
Testing the brand new mobile-based Fireside Helper was easy sufficient: The AI immediate provides examples of the kinds of wording you should use to have calendar occasions created for you, or you may merely press the digital camera icon to take an image of a schedule or add one which you have already got saved in your telephone. I used to be principally curious how lengthy it could take to course of a request. This is how the Fireside Helper seems while you click on the icon on the cellular app:
Credit score: Jordan Calhoun / Lifehacker
After I requested Fireside Helper to create a primary appointment, it took below a minute for the AI to ship me a “Pending Occasion” for approval. It comes with the choice to “Settle for All” or “Reject All” for customers who submitted a number of occasions, or a primary thumbs up or thumbs down for every pending occasion.
Credit score: Jordan Calhoun / Lifehacker
To offer it a extra difficult job, I downloaded a PDF of the New York Metropolis Division of Schooling 2024-2025 Faculty 12 months Calendar to see how lengthy it could take to add a full calendar. Then I spotted the Fireside Helper cannot add PDFs. I took an image of my display as a substitute—not a screenshot, however a lazy, grainy picture of my laptop computer display that I took from my telephone digital camera—which included eight occasions throughout two months. Surprisingly, it nonetheless took below a minute for the occasions to course of, and the AI despatched me a listing of Pending Occasions that had been formatted a lot better than I anticipated. In fact, although, if I truly wished a full calendar of occasions then I would wish to ship a number of footage to span the yr.
There are a number of notable limitations of the Fireside Helper although, which embody:
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You’ll be able to’t add Lists (like to-do or grocery lists) or Routines with the Fireside Helper.
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It’s essential to follow primary footage: Fireside Helper cannot add from URLs, Phrase docs, Google sheets, or different codecs like these.
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Fireside Helper is totally run by AI. If you happen to need assistance with one thing from an actual individual, it is best to contact [email protected].
Is utilizing Fireside Helper price it?
Candidly, I by no means anticipated to make use of the Fireside Helper for its meant function. One of many issues that I point out in my preliminary overview is that I really feel the premise of the Fireside Helper is fairly shaky. Name me quaint, however I need a “helper” to reply my customer support questions, ideally by a human, as a substitute of bulk importing occasions that I may do myself in my most well-liked codecs. I are typically nit-picky about calendar group and occasion codecs, and I assume most individuals who use an costly household administration system to run their dwelling are too. However taking a look at these outcomes from the Fireside Helper bulk uploader, I could have modified my thoughts for 2 causes.
Credit score: Jordan Calhoun / Lifehacker
First, the occasions are correct and constantly formatted; and second, the listing of imported occasions are clickable and simple to manually edit or outright reject. My foremost concern was importing an amazing listing of poorly formatted litter into my calendar, however that looks as if much less of a priority than I believed: I can simply bulk add calendars that function optionally available occasion solutions that I can edit, thumbs as much as approve, or thumbs right down to reject. General, it does really feel like this newest replace to the Fireside Show will imply quicker occasion administration and fewer guide steps, and the Fireside Helper can be helpful at back-to-school time, throughout planning for a brand new yr, or every time my youngsters be part of a brand new extracurricular or membership.
