So we're just making Google Assistant even more useless now?

To me this is reading more like you can no longer turn those options off and they are automatically enabled. It literally says your bluetooth mic will be used by default not that you can't use it through bluetooth.

Instead I understand this that basically everything you ask with the phone in your pocket will be "to answer this question you need to unlock your phone" (no, I don't want to enable and train voice match)

Looks like they're removing the toggle making it always enabled, probably because nobody used the phone mic while connected via Bluetooth

In honesty, many of the changes announced seem to remove redundancies

never forget

I never will. I loved Google Now. It legitimately felt like the future when it came out. So much more useful than the dumbass article and product sales feed it is now.

They always make services worse before they end them. Maybe instead of incorporating ai they will release a new, not compatible with existing hardware, assistant and they are moving teams around.

It's that they're pulling resources away from assistant and preparing to launch Bard in its place.

What are you saying can't use it with blutooth, the update just says it will be used by default if you have a blutooth device connected.

I've had this issue with my headset forever, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't but I would ask Google a question and then Google replies with you "please unlock your device". If I unlock my device with my hands I'm not asking you how many grams of protein are in a cup of flour. My hands are dirty. Or busy. If this update makes it no longer accept requests while locked and I'm wearing my Bluetooth headset, the wtf is the point of it.
- It doesn't say that though, it says it's under the 'assistant lock screen' settings page now rather than the blutooth device page.

Another silent change in the latest update, at least on my phone, is that the assistant disregards media volume levels and screams its feedback on full volume. It wasn't like this until a week ago. Restarting, playing with settings, adjusting the volume as she screams, nothing helps.

So if I ask her to do something late at night she goes, "OKAY I WILL DO WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU ASKED ME TO DO AND WILL ANNOUNCE IT TO THE ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD IN THE PROCESS"

"OKAY, BUYING MORE PREPARATION H"

I don’t understand why google is still worth so much money, they are a trash company that really isn’t trying to improve any of its products. It just periodically threatens its workers with job cuts and continues to serve up crap to its customers.

That's because you don't understand what business Google is actually in. They're an ad company. They sell and serve ads. Everything else is just ways to better target and serve ads. All those "products"? Those aren't revenue streams to them, they're incidental costs of the ads that are their actual product.
- I understand that, but they aren’t even that functional at doing that. They have ruined their products so much that it is threatening the ad value of the ads they sell I imagine. Google search is awful now and there is a very real chance people will stop using it for the first time in like a decade.

That reminds me, I should really check out Graphene OS...

Yes you should -- but definitely make sure you know what you're giving up (or freeing yourself from as the case may be) before diving in.

Google Wallet is probably the biggest deal breaker for most.
- Yeah, Google Wallet and my banking app. Secondarily, access to my work emails and Slack. I'm on the move so much during the day, my laptop rarely leaves my backpack sometimes.
Do it, boi. One of us. One of us.
- hope i can get a pixel for grapheneos in the future (not available in my country)

They’re slowly phasing out Google assistant in an attempt to kill it.

My bet is that they're trimming down its complexity so they can more easily/fully integrate it with Bard: https://blog.google/products/assistant/google-assistant-bard-generative-ai/
- Google usually replaces something well built out with someone very incomplete.
  
  Maybe their game here is to trim it to hell so Bard doesn't look so comparatively incomplete?
- Gutting it is more like, but yeah I gather they’re doing something like this.
They've rendered my Google smart speaker mostly useless except as a glorified hands free on/off switch for lights and tv. I used to be able to add items to my shopping list on Bring via voice command, and then suddenly one day it stopped working because they got rid of the tool that enabled that function (I'm not using their shitty lists app instead). I also found out that a tracking app that I use for noting down baby feeding times and diapers used to have voice command functionality until, you guessed it, Google axed that feature. It worked perfectly well before, I'm guessing they didn't want to pay people to maintain it.
- I mostly used it for bring. Back in summer 2023 they nixed the API so I gather a lot of API integrations have stopped working.
  
  Overall the quality of the product has gone down too. It doesn’t recognise me as well as it used to, and it very rarely attempts to give answers, usually you just get a “sorry I don’t understand” instead.
  
  What’s really amusing to me is that HomeKit and Siri has become more reliable than Nest and Google Assistant is. Siri used to be laughable, and while it still doesn’t do as much as GA used to do, it is much smoother and rarely gives me BS answers. The only time I get annoyed with Siri is when it insists I unlock my phone for it to answer.
  
  Google assistant barely even does lights for me anymore. It usually puts on some rubbish podcast instead. Or it cancels all alarms. Absolute garbage.

I noticed that Hey Google wasn't working from the lock screen anymore. Pretty annoying.

does that help with privacy at all? would that mean someone can't pick up your locked phone and ask it questions like "who did I recently call"?
- If the voice doesn't match the account owner, it doesn't give out any personal info. If you use somebody else's Assistant, you can only get general search results or media payback, typically.
I have a couple of phones in use. 1 never answers which is fine as I have a display too, but the other answers every time I can do that if you unlock your device first.
- Yeah, after the update, it only answers if I unlock my phone. It's not as convenient as it was before.

Oh don't worry, I'm sure it'll be back behind a paywall soon enough.

My sound search hasn't worked in a very long time. One day there was an update, and it just stopped trying. It immediately says Unable to find a match. Based on all the forums I went through, I'm not alone with this issue.

Oh glad to know I'm not the only one. There's a song that plays often at work that I'm just dying to know the name of but every time I try, Google tells me it's unable to connect.
- That's weird. I have a pixel 6a and it tells me on my lock screen and pull down notification bar what's playing at all times. I don't know if that's just a pixel thing but maybe try enabling that option if you have it?
- Yes I've noticed this on my devices now for awhile. I gave up and downloaded a separate app instead.

If I understand this correctly in my use case Assistant will get worse in my car with a aftermarket head unit. The mic isn't that great on the radio and I've had better luck using the handset mic instead.

An aftermarket head unit usually has an external microphone jack in the wiring harness where you can plug an extra microphone and place it somewhere near the driver (e.g. behind the steering wheel). Just buy a small microphone to upgrade the recording quality.

Mine turned off completely and won't even download to the phone. Whatever. Less shit is better anyway.

They heard OpenAi wanted to replace Google assistant and instead of fixing the problems decided to kill it. Typical Google.

Surely this is not related to recent major layoff in Google Assistant division, right?

Downdate

"All the 'G' keys on our keyboards are missing, my front wheel is missing, [whispers to camera] I cant get home! [narrorator: 'careful tim']"

They just laid off a bunch of people from Google Assistant

"Oh shit we should probably charge a subscription for some of these features. Quick remove em so they don't notice"

But it sounds like they're just removing the ability to disable those features, not the features?

How google of them

Rabbit gonna kill these guys

I've never used it, only clogs ram.

I wonder if they did this due to security vulnerabilities and it's just temporary? If not, it definitely makes it virtually worthless if they plan to keep it permanent.

They want out and haven't found a way to make money off of voice assistant. They're just slowly killing it.

It's part of why I'm pushing hard on my HA and hoping their voice efforts at least give me a solid voice experience at home.

HA = Home Assistant

Edit to say: I get that people are frustrated that previously good (mostly) free solutions are going away. I'm not defending tech, but I do see their business need here. Google has long lost my trust anyhow.

I'm not upset by the down votes, but 8 do wonder what they mean.

To me the only safe thing to do is pull back and build my own. Raspberry Pis aren't expensive.

Imagine still using google services in 2024

And use what else for an ecosystem that isn't Apple based?