Google Assistant is rolling out for the Samsung Galaxy Watch4, at long last
When theSamsung Galaxy Watch4debuted last August, it was missing several of the features that Google had touted for the Wear OS 3 platform it has collaborated with Samsung on, chief among them being Google Assistant as a voice assistant option. For the last eight months, our voice options have been Bixby or nothing — and many of us went with nothing in the hopes Assistant would arrive soon. It’s been"coming soon"for so long. Then in April, we saw the first hints of Assistant support throughVerizon’s software update support page.
Of course, the feature wasn’t actually ready, so instead, Samsung taunted us with a quickly-removedWatch4 ad showing Google Assistant. At Google I/O told us that it would finally be coming “this summer,” and apparently, summer starts today. Google and Samsung are truly, finally, legitimatelyrolling outGoogle Assistant support for the Galaxy Watch4 and Galaxy Watch4 Classic in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, Australia, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. (Sorry, India.) Owners can download Google Assistant from the Google Play Store on their Galaxy Watch 4, then use it to interact with apps on their watch, answer questions, and even set it as the press-and-hold home button action instead of the power menu or Bixby. (Now, if only we could set press-and-hold on the back button to Google Pay instead of Samsung Pay…)
Google Assistant was one of the last Google app holdouts on the Samsung Galaxy Watch4 series, further cementing it as one of thebest Android smartwatchesavailable today. Depending on how thePixel Watchshakes out this fall, the Watch4 — or its successor, theGalaxy Watch5— could run table among Android smartwatches for quite a while, especially onceHealth Connectarrives later this year and opens up the way health apps work on and with your watch.
While Bixby is surprisingly okay these days, it’s still reliant on you training a good voice model for it to recognize, and Google Assistant has a much better track record in that department — not to mention more devices use Assistant, and it can tie in with a wider array of apps and actions. Assistant on Wear OS 2 was great if it worked; emphasis onif, not when. Because of the outdated chipsets on most Wear OS 2 watches, Assistant was slow and thus would fail about 30-40% of the time. We can only hope Google and Samsung have worked to drastically improve the speed and experience before bringing it to the Watch4, given how long this has taken.
A fast, seamless voice assistant experience on Wear OS has been a long time coming, and I for one cannot wait to give it a shot.
Things get red hot for Magenta
Google’s made several improvements over the years
Change your network settings the easy way
M3 Expressive now refreshes the chat screen
Boost Mobile sees changes, too
The entry-level Pixel delivers value
