I've run out of patience with the Pixel Tablet as a smart hub
One of the selling points of the Pixel Tablet is its ability to double as an Assistant speaker and smart hub. It failed me at both of those.
A little eye-opening to read about the issues experienced. Glad I wasn't an early adopter in this case.
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Honestly, the biggest thing they need to fix is the assistant. It can't even set the alarm to 5:05 with voice commands, without suggesting that I meant to say 5:05, which is exactly what I said.
It often mistakes what was said, and does a google search, even though you asked it to do a function it's perfomed many times before (like tirning on a light).
Assistant has been wonky for years.
Recently my hub wouldn't recognise "goodnight" as a household routine command, only as a personal one. Instead it'd just respond with a chipper "goodnight!"
There's a new issue every week.
My tin-foil hat conspiracy theory is that they realized they were wasting to much compute power running all the Assistant Smarts, so they've decided to lobotomize it a little bit more each day to cut costs.
That's the only way I can explain it getting dumber and more broken as time passes by.
And it won't get better any time soon given all their time is spent on bard for now
I feel that the last year has been awful for the assistant. We have a google nest mini or w/e in the bedroom, and I can't snooze my alarm for 10min without it shitting the bed and setting off the alarm, while also asking me if I meant 10am or pm (as if I'm setting a new alarm). To be clear, I can snooze for 9 or 11 minutes just fine. But 10 minutes is no good.
It blows my mind that half a year after the public launch of ChatGPT that Google Assistant seems to be getting dumber instead of smarter and Bard is a completely different silo'd product still.
My Google Assistant a while ago picked up a problem. I use it to set timers all the time. Suddenly, one day it wouldn't understand "set a timer for 3:30" anymore and I'd have to say "3:30 pm". Then its dementia progressed and it was setting timers for the next day unless I specified "today at 3:30 pm". Then the day after that lucidity returned and it regained the ability to do the basic "set a timer for 3:30". It doesn't feel like it actually understands language at all. I appreciate that they're making updates, but I wish they were updates for the better.
The first company that will sell me a smart speaker that works like ChatGPT/Bing/Bard/etc. and I throw my Nest speakers in the garbage and switch brands.