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Google has replaced the Google Assistant app on Android with Gemini by default
(www.androidauthority.com)
this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2024
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Do people use Assistant for more than just reminders, weather, and directions? Lol Just curious because that's all I use it for.
That's all it didn't horribly fail at
Dont forget adding to your shopping list and opening the list
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"
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.
"Make a big farting noice" is very popular with my kids
You use the assistant?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
One of the first things I disabled was the assistant.
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'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 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 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 😅
I moved to Antennapod then ended up using Audiobookshelf since I was already hosting it for my wife's audiobooks.
Interesting, what is your complete setup for desktop and mobile? Does sync work well? I mean like starting a podcast in some app and continuing it in another.
So for antennapod I used gpodder Sync. It's not really ideal imo but hosting audiobookshelf has been perfect for me. It's all on the server so no matter what device I'm on, everything is the same.
I like how audiobookshelf works and syncs, but their android app needs auto play/queue like the web version has. I've been listening to "Robot or Not" and episodes are like 2-8 minutes. Gets real annoying to keep needing to select the next episode. Especially while driving as it's unsafe. The android auto syncing isn't great either.
AntennaPod is nicer in that way, but I haven't found a good web player that syncs with it.
"set a timer for X minutes" And "set an alarm for X AM" are super helpful
Don't forget the "named tea" at the end
Tap tap tap, done.
3 taps to set an arbitrary timer or alarm? No chance.
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.
Add X to Y list is great for when you run out of something in the kitchen.
X is already on my Why? list.
I've tried one extra layer of complexity - "Remind me to water the plants when I get home" or something like that. It has no idea what I'm asking it to do despite knowing the "remind me" phrase and knowing where my home is.
I was recently pleasantly surprised that this actually works with Siri, the former dunce child of mobile assistants. Stuff like “Remind me about X when I get in the car” also works now, so the reminder goes off when you connect to Carplay.
It used to work years ago. It's not a technology problem. They changed their policy around location based reminders. One of the reasons I'm degoogling. I got rid of apple products too when they got rid of Google maps in favour of apple maps. Forcing a poorer product on users shows contempt for users.
But you can install any map app you like? There are plenty of legitimate reasons to not use an iPhone, but that's not one of them.
It wasn't the app. It was the idea that rather than continue to default to a good app, they would default to their own poorer product, attempting to force it on consumers. I knew it would only get worse from there. No regrets. It's just unfortunate that android continues to be further locked down too. It used to be more open and customisable.
On the old Nexus phones, didn't you have to sign into Google to even use the device? At least that's better now.
Can install, but can’t default them.
Also a slightly degraded experience compared to the OEM app.