This means:
- Downloading or updating the Assistant app now gives you Gemini instead.
- You can switch back to Assistant in the Gemini app settings.
- This might be Google’s first step towards replacing Assistant completely with Gemini.
- Some users are unaware of the switch and see two Gemini apps on their phones.
Overall, this may suggest Google is phasing out Assistant and transitioning users to the newer Gemini AI technology.
Do people use Assistant for more than just reminders, weather, and directions? Lol Just curious because that’s all I use it for.
“set a timer for X minutes” And “set an alarm for X AM” are super helpful
Add X to Y list is great for when you run out of something in the kitchen.
X is already on my Why? list.
Don’t forget the “named tea” at the end
Tap tap tap, done.
or, continue making coffee while asking it to remind you to buy milk instead of either stopping to tap or completely forgetting which are the only possible outcomes
And ask it a second time because it didn’t understand you.
Well, i guess it depends on your type if it’s for you.
3 taps to set an arbitrary timer or alarm? No chance.
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Simple timers, controlling the lights, background music, reminders, and occasionally thing like “how many tablespoons in a pint”.
I don’t ask it for the weather because I don’t want a 30 second lecture on the weather, and it won’t give me “cold now, hot later, might rain between”.
Given that Gemini seem to be unable to give short answers, and it can’t control stuff, it’s missing most of what I require.
Odd I seem to be able to control all my IOT devices no problem so far from Gemini with voice commands over the phone. This includes all smart switches, lights, thermostats, and so on in my house
It seems to function a little quicker in response with the voice commands IMO.
Oh interesting. I’ll have to check it out again. When I first tried it I asked it to turn off the lights and it said it couldn’t interact with the outside world, a d some searching said they hadn’t implemented that yet, so away it went.
I played with it some more, and it seems like it’s just flaky. I could ask it to turn on the living room lights, and it would, but asking it to turn them off got it to inform me that it can’t interact with the outside world.
So it’s not as bad as it first told me, but it’s still not feature parity, and I’m unlikely to use it if it’s not reliable.
Interesting, that somewhat sounds like the pain I had with the og google assistant where I asked it to turn something on and it would just proceed to either turn it off or tell me something different entirely. Though that only started happening to me more over the end of last year where I guess google was just trying to kill it.
For Gemini I installed the standalone app that’s independent of the Google assistant branded app (Gemini was/is still not available inside the assistant app here).
I have been having more success with it where I can ask it longer commands, such as “turn off kitchen lights with hallway lights, and turn on living room lights with the living room shield”.
This kind of command would pretty much end with a “I do not understand” on og google assistant even with a turn of two lights command.
Home control is pretty much the only thing I use Gemini/Google Assistant for. I have been slowly trying to make the switch to a fully local voice with Home Assistant.
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It will give concise explanations like that, but say I want to know the weather 71 miles away at the place where my husband works? Or even 20 miles away where I work. I have to ask it to tell me the weather where I am, tell me the weather in “windhaven”, tell me the weather in "Waterdeep"etc. Or I can just pull up Home Assistant and see a card with that information (which used to work on Google Assistant Smart Displays, but doesn’t work on their current pixel tablet). And I even have a routine set up for this, and now I get a bunch of error messages on my phone and so on. So they broke a lot of things that used to work in Google Assistant, and now Gemini can’t even do those things at all.
You use the assistant?
I do a job where my hands are potentially full and I cannot touch my phone for extended periods of time. I use the assistant for as much as it will let me…
I’ve only ever activated it by accident (I think it’s double-click the power button on my phone). Never actually used the thing.
I only use it for opening Pocket Cast lol.
BTW if anyone has an alternative for Pocket Casts that is free and multiplatform I’m all ears lol (so far Spotify seems like a good alternative, but I don’t like it as a Podcast replacement app).
I use Antennapod on Android, it syncs with Gpodder (which requires self hosting on Nextcloud) and then there’s plenty of compatible clients over on desktop
Thanks for the recommendation, but oh boy, I would prefer to be away from Nextcloud (I have a Synology NAS with its own stuff which I access through VPN), I barely use it and I swear it breaks each update lol
I’m also not a fan of exposing it as I know I wouldn’t take care of it properly… And I am behind a CGNAT and just shut down my VPS…
But pocketcasts is already free, open source and multi platform right?
I’m not crazy into podcasts, but I have no complaints with podcast republic. Although, the other suggestion for audiobookshelf is a solid one
Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll check it out!
I use and like Castbox for podcasts. It’s great, though they have become slightly more aggressive with ads lately.
Huh, well, I guess we can’t have the best of both worlds 😅
Yes, I ask it random things like “is X food dog safe” or how many g of protein is in whatever food.
Or even general knowledge stuff like “how do covalent bonds work”
That’s all it didn’t horribly fail at
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There’s a lot of functionality that a lot of people could like using, but you have to go out of your way to learn about it all.
Gemini is slower to respond to tasks (for now, at least), can’t do all the things assistant can do, and can’t do anything at all without being on data.
Dont forget adding to your shopping list and opening the list