r/Android • u/The_Upside00 • 4d ago
Review Gemini as the Google Assistant is a disaster
Gemini as the Google Assistant is a disaster. I have spent hours trying to make Gemini work as the Google Assistant for simple things. Couple of examples: Gemini was getting my location wrong for weather forecast (was eventually resolved for my home location but would still be questionable if traveling); Wouldn't unlock the lock screen to respond to simple queries like "Hey Google, what's the weather" and "Hey Google, good morning". Switched back to Google Assistant and everything resumed working correctly.
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u/iconix88 3d ago
I tried Gemini in Android Auto once a few months back after getting a new car. I tapped the search button on screen and just spoke the address, a place about 30 minutes from my house, like I'd done a hundred times before. It gave me a list of seven results, four of which were in different states, one which was in a different country. The one I actually wanted was 5th on the list despite being the only exact match for that address within 600 miles. When I selected it, then it started editorializing about the place I was going, asking if I wanted to know about restaurants in the area or where to find parking. Frustrated, I said "shut up and just navigate" to which it replied "I don't respond to negative language". I then just said the literal sentence "navigate to XXX South Broadway st" and that time it at least started navigation mode. To the wrong address.
I don't want to have a fucking conversation with my car I just want it to work quickly, simply, and predictably. I turned it off, switched back to Assistant, said the address once, it got everything right on the first try. I hate this shitty future we've created for ourselves.
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u/deepasfuckbro 3d ago
Gemini in android auto is infuriating. I need android auto to do a very small set of tasks very robustly and with minimal input. An LLM does not fit that task at all.
I've had to commit my family and friends' post codes to memory because whatever I try, I just can't get it to navigate to saved places in Google Maps or addresses in my contacts. I get like 15-20% success rate asking Gemini.
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u/xmrlazyx 3d ago
Don't forget that it creates a new chat in your log for every single failed conversation, burying your legitimate prompts.
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u/OutlawJoseyWales Nexus 6p 3d ago
"I don't respond to negative language"
this would absolutely set me off. it's a fucking computer program. it does not get to command respect. holy fuck
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u/doubletwist 3d ago
Gemini on Android auto seems to be about 33% successful asking it to play music. About 1/3 of the time it successfully starts the song we requested on YouTube music, which is set everywhere as my default music player, and is the only music player that I actually use.
The other half of the time it either says it's not allowed to play video in the car, or it tells me it doesn't know which music app to use and I have to ask it again and specify YouTube music. And this is all happening while it's already playing music on YouTube music.
It's infuriating.
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u/VengefulCaptain 3d ago edited 3d ago
I'm not sure if that is better or worse than my experience.
Since the switch it seems that voice commands are just broken a significant amount of the time.
Sometimes it will pretend to start voice input and then crash.
Sometimes it will detect the voice input, think for 30+ seconds and then crash without performing any actions.
Sometimes it will work correctly but it's noticeably slower to start accepting voice inputs.
On days where it has one of these issues it tends to be bad all day.
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u/hff0 4d ago
"I want a 5 minute timer"
Ok, searching 5 minute timer, here's the results
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u/BrainWav Pixel 7 Pro, Lenovo M10 Plus 3d ago
And even if it does, there's a delay in every goddamn thing. Assistant had one sometimes too, but usually nowhere near as long.
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u/lgbanana 3d ago
For me, it confirmed setting the timer yet the alarm never goes off and when asking it how long left it denied there was ever a timer set
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u/DrShocker Nexus 6P 4d ago
It's absolutely crazy that they let it become the default without it passing like 99.9999% parity in the background.
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u/dragoneye 4d ago
That is just how Google operates. They don't maintain anything since it doesn't get people promotions. Instead they develop a new piece of software and sunset the old one with no concern for the current users.
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u/trlef19 Galaxy S24+ 4d ago
You wrongly assume they care.
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u/Dark_Force Moto G 3d ago
They care about justifying their AI costs to investors, we are just pawns for them
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u/efbo Pixel 10 Pro Fold, Unihertz Jelly Max, Pixel Tablet, Pebbles 4d ago edited 4d ago
On my Pixel they got rid of Assistant last week, now when I trigger Assistant I just get a pop up to turn on Gemini.
With my Nest devices that do still have Assistant they've butchered it so much now. It used to be able to answer questions like "how much pasta should I cook per person" by searching it and reading out the little summary box. Now it just says "sorry I don't understand". They've effectively been bricked for everything except music, weather and home controls.
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u/ExMerican 4d ago
Music is only maybe 75%. With Assistant I could say "play (whatever song) and it just played that song. Now every 4th time or so it gives me "sorry, I can't do that." I tested it with a song I'd literally just played to make sure it wasn't a case of not finding the song and it couldn't do it. Completely useless app now.
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u/krazykitties HTC EVO 4G LTE 3d ago
My favorite most common use case for voice commands was "what song is this" with a 100% success rate for at least trying to match a song. Now with gemini forced on the phone, its maybe 20% it will attempt that, and 80% of the time tell me it can't acces my mic. You know, the thing is just accessed to hear me and responded to.
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u/omniuni Pixel 8 Pro | Developer 4d ago
The issue isn't even Gemini, it's the Assistant harness.
What's astonishing to me is that if I rig up a simulation where I create a tool of all the stuff it's supposed to be able to do, and I give it to even a basic Gemini model, it is absolutely capable of triggering whatever it needs, and does so quite reliably.
So how exactly Google has bungled the Assistant replacement so badly is beyond me.
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u/poompk Oppo Find X8 Ultra | Galaxy Tab S9 4d ago
Yea, I notice that too! They dumbed down Gemini for the assistant replacement module a lot. Gemini flash in the actual Gemini app is so much smarter. It's like they loaded Gemini-superlite (or Gemini-dumb I'd say) to the speakers
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u/omniuni Pixel 8 Pro | Developer 4d ago
I actually don't think it's Gemini (alone), I think it's primarily the harness.
One issue that Gemini has across the board is that it does NOT like using Tools. To give you an idea, given the same system prompt, same tools, and the same instruction to "ask a series of questions to help choose a movie", the difference between Gemini and, say, DeepSeek is very stark. Gemini will use the interaction tool as minimally as possible. I need to give it specific instructions to ask at least three questions, or it will ask one and then make a suggestion. On the other hand, DeepSeek will ask several questions, genre, era, streaming services, and then formulate a response. In other words, if you want Gemini to use a tool, you need to be very very clear and insistent that it do so. That's OK, but it is something the developer writing the harness needs to be aware of. (There is a reason, in my personal tooling, that Gemini gets some extra push to use tools that the other models don't.)
I have noticed that Flash 3.7 and 3.8 are much better at tool use, so I think we'll see a significant improvement when Flash Lite 3.8+ or Flash Lite 4 comes out. But that's still not an excuse for the people making the Assistant harness not knowing how Gemini acts and building their system prompt accordingly.
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u/proboscislounge 3d ago
I have no idea what any of that means, or what an AI harness is, but you sound like you know what you're talking about, and I think they should totally hire you.
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u/omniuni Pixel 8 Pro | Developer 3d ago
An AI model kind of generates as it goes. However, they can accept more than just text-in and produce text-out. You can give them tools that they can call that are essentially interactive -- the model calls the tool, the tool outputs the result, and the result shapes the continued output of the model. The harness is basically the software container that delivers all of those tools, and shapes the input and output around the model.
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u/Johnny_Bravo_fucks S3, Mi4i, OP3T, GFlex 2, S9+, S22U, OPOpen, S25U 3d ago edited 3d ago
interesting observation, and it only makes this more ridiculous. like is there no communication between the Android integration team and the Gemini team or what? and I just can't understand, was any QA performed at all? you can't tell me they didn't notice the regression. a lot of bullshit Google historically did seemed to imply some sort of internal communication breakdowns or siloing (redundant products or improper migrations) but this is just egregious.
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u/PXLShoot3r S23 Ultra 3d ago
If you ask Gemini "how many degrees is it" (very common phrase in German) it says it doesn't have access to weather data. If you ask Gemini "how many degrees is it outside" it suddenly works.
Sometimes it doesn't pull weather data but says some bullshit temperature it pulled out of its ass.
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u/nauzleon 3d ago
Mine was stuck saying ONLY the wind speed... In miles per hour to add insult to injury for a good while.
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u/SharksFan4Lifee 4d ago
People shouldn't be surprised. The same thing happened with the screen to the left of the home screen.
First it was Google Now, which actually was useful. It actually showed important things to you, like flight info, package tracking, commute times.
And then Google changed it into Google Discover, which is just a news feed.
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u/DavidBHimself 3d ago
Not just a news feed, but a news feed of total junk.
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u/Willabus 3d ago
And Facebook followed suit.
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u/DavidBHimself 3d ago
Didn't Facebook start the whole "You won't see people you follow anymore, I'm going to fill your news feed with trash instead?"
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u/Willabus 3d ago
I can't remember which company started at first. I probably noticed it more with Google because the left pane Now feed was something I used every day and had come to depend on.
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u/Willabus 3d ago
Nexus 5 with Google Now was peak smartphone.
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u/Dragnod 3d ago
Remember when it showed you a card and an option to navigate to the place you parked your car? Without you having to do a damn thing? Good times.
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u/Willabus 3d ago
One time I wasn't even using navigation and Now alerted me to a traffic delay on my route and suggested a new route to avoid the traffic, avoiding a 2 hour delay.
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u/ohheyisayokay 3d ago
When you said "screen to the left of the home screen," I actually got a little confused, that's how long it's been since I swiped to that screen. I forgot it exists or what was on it.
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u/stormdelta Pixel 10 Pro 12h ago
Google Now was still the only version I actually found useful, because it was reliable and straightforward.
Assistant never was - it leaned too hard into heuristics that weren't reliable, jumbled positioning and interfaces, and didn't integrate cleanly cross-device the way Google Now did.
I'm not surprised Gemini is even worse, I gave up on all of those after they butchered Now. Never saw a single point in re-enabling any of it, it's not a convenience feature if it's constantly changing and unreliable.
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u/Znuffie S24 Ultra 3d ago
Google Now was average at best, and not best suited for everyone.
Maybe I'm a niche case, but I don't travel that much, I've been working from home for over 10 years, and my apps already show me tracking info for packages.
The Google Now info was... meh at best for me.
Now at least I check news articles daily.
As an aside: did Google Discover start showing up stupid Threads posts for you too?
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u/BrainWav Pixel 7 Pro, Lenovo M10 Plus 3d ago
I get so many Threads and Instagram posts in that thing. I'm not on either. I don't want them, or X/Twitter posts. I don't want social media posts at all unless it's from a source I trust.
Shit, I don't want Youtube videos in there unless they're on my subscriptions.
At least this reminded me to turn the damned thing off and start looking for a real news app. I just wish other apps could integrate into the swipe right thing like Now/Discover did.
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u/TSwizzlesNipples 3d ago
I used to start the shower, say "OK Google, tell me the news." and I could listen to actual news reports from NBC, NPR, etc the whole time. Now I get AI generated headlines. 3 of them. Fuck Gemini.
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u/joejoe347 3d ago
You can still get this fyi. Say play the news from NPR, or play my morning brief and instruct it to play npr when you say this, or tell it that when you say play the news you mean npr and it should remember. Not ideal but just saying it does still work.
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u/HarryBallsagna_ 3d ago
Every time I try to trigger my news routine in Gemini it fails and then says "As an AI text model, I can't directly play audio through your device's speakers like a voice assistant can. However, if you open your podcast player or audio app, you can jump right into your latest briefing!" 🫠
Bruh, I asked YOU to play the news and now you're giving me instructions on how to manually do it while I'm driving.
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u/joejoe347 3d ago
This is actually what is so crazy to me. I NEVER have these issues, I don't understand how the system can be so inconsistent like this. So strange.
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u/The_Upside00 3d ago
IT'S GONE. GOOGLE ASSISTANT is now FORCING me to use Gemini when I start Google Assistant. I found out this morning when i tried to run "Hey Google, Good Morning". Nothing happened. So when i unlocked the phone there was the "Gemini is your Digital Assistant" message with the set up screen.
This is a change from 2 days ago when I did the post. Google Assistant actually ran 2 days ago and doesn't now. So it appears my options are to try Gemini again or use Samsungs Bixby.
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u/The_Upside00 3d ago
So I enabled Gemini and asked "Hey Google, what's the weather". It gives me the weather for a large city 300 miles away. Same issue as I had a day ago using Gemini before switching back to Google Assistant.
This is another debacle similar in concept to when Google replaced their outdoor house mounted wired cams with the magnetic mount 3 month battery powered cams. Magnetic mount! If the cam is low anyone could take the cam right off the mount. If the cam is mounted high, then you need a ladder to get to the cam to charge it. There's a lot of people in the northern US who have little things like snow and ice to deal with, a 3 month battery means you're out there in snow and ice to charge the battery.
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u/stainless7221 3d ago
It can't even start playing music from Spotify. Then it recommended me to switch back to Google Assistant... WHICH ISN'T POSSIBLE
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u/DexRogue Black S24 Ultra 4d ago
Continued enshitification of every Google product. It's depressing. Google Assistant used to be amazing and it's gotten so bad. GBoard voice to text constantly has connection issues and always messes up simple words and lags so bad, Gemini just made it worse, when I try to use a command with android auto the damn thing just stops working for a good 1-2 minutes then makes a sound and cancels itself and of course the damn thing is forced down our throats.
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u/CoffeeandTV 4d ago
Amen. It has ruined every useful feature of Assistant. Even the ones that still "work" are so inconsistent and baffling in some of the incorrect responses that I dread trying to use it. Google has lost me as any future customer. All of my Google home devices will soon be retired (hello HomeAssistant) and I hate to say it but the 9 pro may be my last Pixel. Assistant used to be SOOO good and they've burned it to the ground.
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u/donall 3d ago
hey google play a song/podcast.... no
ive been able to do this simple thing for decades, without that theres no point to the google ecosystem
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u/The_Upside00 3d ago
Agreed. I'll have to seriously consider switching to Apple for my next phone.
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u/shrodingercat5 3d ago
Thats where I'm at at this point. Its not even about feature parity, i just feel like google decided that the consumers of their products can stuffit and I see no reason to stay. Having only been android since smart phones started I'm excited to give it a try!
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u/ToniNotti 3d ago
I remember this. I had my Nokia N95 like 20 years ago and it was able to do all kinds of stuff with voice commands...
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u/UnacceptableUse Pixel 7 Pro 3d ago
I had it forced upon me the other day. I was driving and tried to call someone and got a whole speech welcoming me to Gemini, I asked again and it told me it couldn't make a phone call. Great job
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u/smellycatx 2d ago
I once asked "Wake me up in half an hour"and it replied" Ok, see you then" and proceeded to NOT set the alarm. Then and there I knew I was witnessing the future.
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u/AlertHuckleberry8651 3d ago
gemini assistant is crap, also after google maps started incorporating Gemini, it is acting crap as well. When I say "OK google, navigate to home", instead of starting direction to my home, it takes me a shopping mall, 10 miles away. :-) (Of course , my home address is set properly, and i can click on "HOME" in google maps, and it works, it is just the assistant voice command which doesn't.
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u/touchwiz touchwiz touchwiz touchwiz touchwiz 4d ago
The best is the Gemini integration in Android Automotive.
Hey Google turn on the heated seats - ok
This is saved as a chat session now in the Gemini App. Every time.
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u/TheRealSerialCarpins 3d ago
"Set a reminder for Tuesday at 1 to stop at the pharmacy"
Gemini: "Just a sec......thinking....thinking."
Google Assistant: "OK. Your reminder is set for Tuesday at 1."
Also, the voices are all absolutely terrible. They try to sound more "human" and in doing so, sound far less human.
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u/cjrecordvt 4d ago
How did you switch back to Google Assistant? I thought they took that off most devices.
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u/GothicFuck Moto X4 Pure 4d ago
It's called "Digital assistants from Google" in settings select the coresponding radio button.
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u/cjrecordvt 4d ago
No such critter. Must be because I'm a Pixel, I'm stuck with it.
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u/GothicFuck Moto X4 Pure 3d ago
The pixel I have here seems to only have Google Assistant, weird. Must be A/B testing happening right now.
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u/lupask 3d ago
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u/PetitMorte 3d ago
Installing this just opens a Gemini screen explaining that Gemini has replaced Assistant, click here to get started with Gemini. :(
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u/393majitenshi 3d ago
New updates to the Google update killed it. You are supposed to stay on an older version.
But if a system update ships with a newer version then you are stuck with Gemini.
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u/infinitysea 3d ago edited 3d ago
This begs the question of why we allow tech companies to take center stage in our lives and allow it to be so disruptive with so little consideration how it affects us.
After some hard and long search, I gave up finding a replacement for GA. My solution was I unlearned my behavior to use voice search and on-device commands.
I am actually using my phone less and less these days, and I find that the less I use my phone the less stress I feel it's pretty amazing.
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u/user888ffr 4d ago
It's kinda crazy that the same thing is happening with Apple trying to merge Siri and Apple Intelligence. Those trillion dollar companies can't do better than that?
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u/Willabus 3d ago
What's so frustrating to me is that the people working on these projects are making mid-high 6 figures (some 7 figures) and are delivery a terrible product that few, if any, customers asked for.
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u/PM-Mormon-Underwear 3d ago
Yes but have you thought of how many times they can mentioned AI in the next shareholders meeting?
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u/Linetard85 3d ago
These phones aren't designed for normal people. They're designed for the same kinda of whiny tech nerds who spent all that time bitching about "much bezels" until we ended up with the crappy phones we have now.
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u/Phantom-Finger 4d ago
Trying to send a voice to text via Android auto is absolute cluster fuck of useless.
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u/BotchedMiracle 3d ago
This shit was the final straw for me to switch to iPhone. Believe it or not, Siri actually does the little shit, though it struggles to make a multi stop navigation without extremely specific commands. But it’s nice to rely on a a basic assistant again.
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u/jefmes 3d ago
FWIW, I do believe Apple Intelligence is now just a rebranded Gemini...but happy to be wrong if someone knows differently.
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u/BotchedMiracle 3d ago
Regardless of the model the key is the implementation. Just seems that Apple’s implementation is just cleaner. At least after a week of use.
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u/jefmes 3d ago
That's good to hear. We're pretty embedded in Google here in our house, and Gemini has been getting slowly better enough, though I still mostly hate it lol...but I have been considering an iPhone for the first time, ever, due to some of these issues and Apple focusing more on hardware than owning people's personal info.
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u/Eeshoo Sound Recorder by ELC 3d ago
Not being able to use it when there's no network sucks
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u/bigred42 Pixel 9 Pro 3d ago
All I want is Google Assistant/ Google Home circa 2018. It was perfect.
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u/cattrain HTC One (m8) - T-Mobile USA - ViperOne 4d ago
My favorite part is how sometimes it turns my lights on, and sometimes it says hardware controls haven't been enabled yet.
Oh, and how my action blocks are completely useless now
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u/ChampionChoice1864 S25 Ultra, Mi Pad 6, Tab S7+ 3d ago edited 3d ago
It was pretty okay in the beginning, but now it feels like talking to an alzheimer patient. For how much data they steal, they sure as hell use it as inefficiently as possible.
the youtube website on desktop is vibe coded garbage too nowadays
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u/wileyfoxyx1 4d ago
Meanwhile in my country Gemini is not available at all lol...
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u/The_Upside00 4d ago
Count yourself lucky. Helping Google, by doing their testing for them, is a huge waste of your time.
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u/chunkylover87 3d ago
I have a separate question about this and it's really about using Gemini as an assistant in Android Auto. It's my first time using Android Auto and I'm on a Pixel 10a. Is Gemini supposed to be this slow to help with text and everything? Compared to Siri, Siri is much faster. Sometimes it feels like it takes forever for Gemini to do anything
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u/DiNoMC 3d ago
Siri is like google assistant. Gemini is LLM, it's wayyyyy slower, yes, always
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u/Hanover_Phist 3d ago
It's don't need a large language model on my phone I need a tiny language model
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u/TheACwarriors 3d ago
Its gotten so bad that samsung bixby more reliable. Especially when they added ai to it it function like siri ai and just does what I want. Add to calendar, play music and other samsung apps work great
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u/leftcoastpunx 1d ago
I received a text while driving and had Gemini read it to me. It asked if I wanted to reply to the message, so I said "yes". Gemini then immediately with full confidence and zero hesitation exited from the voice prompts, opened a different music player to the one I had just seconds ago been listening to music on, and started playing music from the band YES 🤦♂️
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u/fattomic 1d ago
It is slooooooooooooow. I've even stopped asking it what the weather forecast is.
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u/j_aroche Sony Xperia 5 IV:doge: 4d ago
But hey, Gemini's usage KPIs are exponential, so is all good to C-Level suits
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u/chinchindayo Xperia Masterrace 3d ago
you have to give gemini all rights and access to app history, browsing history, location history ect.. also dedicated access to your google apps.. yes those are all different settings and some disabled by default. otherwise gemini is useless as an assistant.
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u/deepasfuckbro 3d ago
Even when you give it all the permissions it needs, it still can't reliably pull data from anything other than a web search
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u/ChampionChoice1864 S25 Ultra, Mi Pad 6, Tab S7+ 3d ago
It is useless despite me having all these on. It suddenly needs me to unlock my phone every time. It doesnt understand simple tasks, it says it does them but nothing is being done.
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u/The_Upside00 3d ago
I did that as part of the trouble shooting process using the suggested fixes that gemini was giving me. But, Google Assistant is moot now. Today Assistant started forcing me to use Gemini.
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u/ArcaneCowboy 3d ago
Can't launch a music player other than YouTube music.
Can't reliably set a timer.
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u/mottavader Galaxy S10+/T-mobile USA 4d ago
I miss saying, "hey Google, play me the latest news" and getting all of the latest audio snippets from selected news sources. I used that prompt every morning while getting ready for work and it was awesome to hear world news, tech stuff, some interviews, breaking news stories. Sigh.
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u/The_Upside00 4d ago
I use that functionality in Google Assistant nearly every day. News is part of the "Hey Google, Good Morning" routine.
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u/TVNewsApp 2d ago
You might join the beta user community for the 1 Radio News as I gather feedback of how to give my pro-level users the ability to customize the order of their "play the news" headlines. I actually started collecting news headlines podcasts in English a few years before Google Assistant even existed.
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u/pojosamaneo 3d ago
It's either all or nothing with Gemini. It requests so much of your info. I choose to give it nothing (as far as I am able).
All I ever wanted to do was set an alarm, turn my lights off, and add apples to my shopping list. It got too smart for those simple tasks.
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u/gcoeverything 3d ago
"Hey google, add X to my shopping list."
"Yes, I can add X to your shopping list. Do you want me to do that?"
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u/itchy_toenails 3d ago
More than half of my use-case of the Google Assistant was for its quick & nifty on-screen translation that overlays the translation over the source text. Gemini can't do this.
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u/JayGreeny 3d ago
Gemini is functionally useless when trying to use it on a motorbike through a bluetooth headset. Assistant worked for what I needed. Make a call occasionally as I got near my destination, start navigation, and play music. Three simple tasks, Assistant would perform as expected with the screen locked. Gemini asks me to unlock my screen, or instead of calling my brother when asked, I got a rundown of the career history of a footballer (UK so, soccer player for the unenlightened) minus the sexual assault allegations.
Possibly the most perfect example of enshittification I've experienced.
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u/Kalkaline Gray 3d ago
Google Assistant was just fine. I didn't need it to do anything else. If they want to give people the option to build routines with Gemini for Assistant to run, then fine, do that. Don't take away the Assistant though and force Gemini on me. I've been with Google a long time, as a paying customer, but I don't have to continue if they jack up their products.
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u/Kinky_jackalope475 2d ago
Gemini is shit in general. It's been the absolute worst AI tool I've used out of all of them.
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u/AleksLevet Device, Software !! 1d ago
I shouldn't need to ping an LLM to pause/skip a song
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u/localpauper 11h ago
Talk about an absolute waste of energy. A simple local model can resolve that command in 50ms and use a basic router to fire off an intent to pause the song. But no, you get to go to the data center, pay that roundtrip latency, then burn however much energy activating a new KV session, new context, loading a bunch of tools, just to hopefully get the LLM to emit tool-call to "pause song," which comes down to Gemini local in hopefully the right format, so it can then emit an intent based on that. Absolute waste of compute!
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u/NightHare 1d ago
It refuses to open apps while driving, so no playing a podcast, turning on music, which ironically kills any hands-free functionality which is... Basically the whole point. Also it decides to switch into other languages while on the road.
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u/tallnginger 4d ago
I used to be able to say "Hey Google take me to John Smith's house" in Andriod Auto, and it would open maps to the address for the contact John Smith.
Not anymore with gemini! It doesn't recognize the name 70% of the time and has no clue who I might be talking to or if they even live in a house if it does get the name right with gemini
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u/Gontarius 4d ago
I just used to say '<street name>', now I need to say a whole phrase 'navigate to <street name> to hopefully avoid a 2 minute deluge of nonsense monologue.
Small? Maybe. But after getting used to the old model over the years it just pisses me off.
Oh and using it to play something over Spotify just basically stopped working.
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u/mozilla2012 3d ago
I used to say "navigate me to <local business>" anr that doesn't work anymore. It's insane
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u/PLPNvM 4d ago
Well, yes, mainly because Gemini was never designed to be a replacement for a Google Assistant; it has a completely different function and purpose. In fact, if you ask it about it, it will tell you that it is not capable of doing the same things as Google Assistant
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u/Xeenic 4d ago
Then why did they force us to use this instead of assistant? Not saying your are wrong, but wtf Google.
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u/furculture Fairphone 6+ 4d ago edited 4d ago
Yeah. Now I can't simply press a button to translate things on screen that I can't highlight or quickly select something to do a quick reverse image search. This is so fucked up. Plus a forced conversation with Gemini to get anything done is fucking stupid with something that is in general both fucking stupid in form and function.
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u/Elephant789 Pixel 7 4d ago
Switched back to Google Assistant and everything resumed working correctly.
How is that possible. GA isn't around anymore.
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u/The_Upside00 4d ago
Google Assistant was there for me. The Gemini troubleshooting chat even gave me the option when the suggeated corrections failed to resolve the issues. Gemini is clearly immature software.
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u/gary25566 3d ago
I am doing the temporary measure of uninstalling and reinstalling google updates periodically. It will bring back Assistant for a couple hours before forcing itself to be Gemini.
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u/Far_Reserve9938 3d ago
that's why we need competition, and that's what the EU is trying to do for us.
but Google, and especially Apple don't want this because they know very well that their assistants are horrendous. At least apple made huge improvements in the last iOS version, but google has been mediocre at best and no improvement in sight.
Only one thing can solve that, and it's some good old competition.
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u/MattBrey 3d ago
My smart speaker stopped setting up timers for me a couple weeks ago. It was working perfectly with Gemini before but suddenly I noticed it doesn't ring anymore. It says timer set but never actually sets it up. The first times it happened I thought I was going insane
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u/planeray Samsung S20FE 5G 3d ago
Oh god, I'm in the same weird half way place with it (using pixel).
I have an excellent system for my morning alarm. Alarm goes off, volume goes up to a certain percent, wifi switch turns on and some news podcasts play. Don't ask me what app. Been working for ages. Now, if I happen to snooze the alarm or accidentally turn it off, instead of saying "her Google, read me the news" and it plays the same morning News summaries (ABC Australia, Al Jazeera, BBC & NPR) that is been doing for years, it decides I want some other random news.
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u/WeaponizedKissing Samsung Galaxy Note 9 3d ago edited 3d ago
Switched back to Google Assistant and everything resumed working correctly.
Tell me your secrets, please.
Since the forced rollout in September there is no way (for me, and I'm sure everyone, soon) to switch back to Google Assistant anymore.
I've heard that you can rollback the version of the Google app installed on your phone, with some effort, but I've not tried that yet.
Edit. Not much effort. Can confirm this works, though I don't know what knock on effects uninstalling Google updates will have on the rest of the phone: https://www.reddit.com/r/googleassistant/comments/1wtg23a/gemini_out_back_to_classic_assistant_fix/pcubomj/?context=3
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u/joebleaux 3d ago
Lots of apps that were fine don't work right now that they are "AI powered". SwiftKey actively changes your input from correct spellings and grammar. The product it turns my text into is worse than what I typed, but they changed it to an AI based algorithm now so it picks the most likely word based on context rather than based on what I typed, taking the s off plural words and the -ed off past tense words, changing it to I
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u/Ciberbago Poco F7 3d ago
Not defending google but... it actually works better for me now that is gemini. For example, with GA, I could tell it to "Turn on kitchen and room lights" and it would never work. That now works fine with gemini.
And the simple things like setting a timer, asking for the weather, still work as always. The thing I did notice, though is expected, is that it's slower. I assume it is because it has to "think" everything.
But I also like being able to ask it real questions and not a really engineered search query (with GA, I had to be very specific in my wording or it would not search well).
So... overall I'm happy with the change.
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u/doubletwist 3d ago
We asked Gemini (via a Google Home mini) "How do you spell "détente", and instead of at least making a guess at the spelling, which assistant used to do, it replied "détente is spelled 'detonate'" (And just saying the word detonate, not spelling anything)
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u/RockNRoll_Summer8888 3d ago
I had to remove the last update so that I could turn "Hey Google" back on and not use Gemini. I cannot make callse using "Hey Google" when Gemini is the assistant. Extremely frustrating.
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u/Nix-geek 3d ago
I HATE that they updated my Google TV to replace the simple search with Gemini. I don't want to know shit from my google TV. I want to search for a show and find the show and play the show. I don't need a fucking AI slop about the show.
Know your place, Google.
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u/anon19111 3d ago
Part of me thinks this is due to Gemini not having full access to various apps and data on your device. If it did have seemless access then the complaint would be about privacy and unfair monopoly like IE and windows. I imagine Gemini as an assistant tries to do things in the fastest, least data intensive way.
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u/drpestilence 3d ago
I talk to it just to tell it how bad it is and that it should feel bad. Utter garbage thing.
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u/m4ttjirM 3d ago
I have Google TV on 3 devices, a nest hub, nest cameras, door bell, smart switches, Google speakers, everything works perfectly through gemini. It had some bumps in the road when it first came out but it's phenomenal now.
I can intercom messages throughout my house to different rooms, cast things on the TV, ask about doorbell activity, arm my home alarm system, turn switches and lights on and off, just about anything I need to do all verbally.
So I don't doubt people are having issues but if my setup with all these devices (most of them are old as hell) is working correctly, gemini can't be that bad.
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u/OldDirtyGurt Sony Xperia 1 VI 3d ago
I never used it on my phone, but I did have a Google home mini and a Lenovo smart clock.
The smart clock simply told me the time, temperature, and weather condition. Now it can't do anything. It's been turned into a brick. The least they could have done is kept the clock functioning.
The Home mini is now useless too. Can't control my Hue lights most of the time, can't pause my TV anymore. Except it will, then say it can't and the TV resumes.
It never did volume right. My TV goes to 100 but I keep it between 10-20. Tried to tell it to go to 10 but everything is multiplied by 10. Went to maximum volume at night. Yes, saying 1.5 would do 15.
Fuck Google.
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u/RustyAsstronaut 3d ago
No idea why, but Google assistant was always trash for me. I couldn't get it to do the most basic shit. "Hey Google, what time is it?" Response: "I found this on the web"
Gemini has worked more than what I ever got with assistant, but now I'm feeling like something with my assistant was just borked and I missed out.
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u/fat_kaiju 3d ago
I asked it for the weather and it showed me the weather for some other place.
I asked it for the weather at my location and it whined that it couldn't.
I asked it to open my weather app and it whined that the weather app it wanted to open wasn't installed so I gave it the exact name of the app I use and it was like nope.
Later on I asked it a question and it didn't sound quite right so I was like "show me the actual information" and it was like uh well i don't have that info.
which means they still can't get it to stop making shit up when it doesn't fucking know which is fucking great. Sigh.
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u/dedokta 4d ago edited 4d ago
I love that half the functions it used to do easily now result in a detailed conversation about how it can't perform that function.