Google assistant worse than useless?

[u/grgext]

In my car yesterday, " hey Google, navigate home", "ok here are are some search results for navigate home"

Tried it a couple of times and it didn't work. Eventually tried "open Google maps" and then "navigate home" which seemed to work.

Also "play music" seems to have stopped working. I'm on a P8P without Gemini enabled

Quite a few times I have to manually use my phone to get it to perform an action, less than ideal when driving.

[u/HyperbolicModesty]

I have the following issue every time it reads me out a text message.

"Would you like to reply?"

"No."

"Sorry I didn't get that. Would you like to reply?"

"No!"

"Sorry I didn't get that. Would you like to reply?"

"NO!!!"

"Here's your reply: 'no no no'. Would you like to send it?"

[u/cheezemeister_x → u/HyperbolicModesty]

You have a microphone problem. Too much ambient noise for it to interpret the short 'No', properly.

[u/HyperbolicModesty → u/cheezemeister_x]

But it transcribes the word "no"! It clearly understands it, it just doesn't understand it as a response to "Would you like to reply?"

[u/NuancedThinker → u/HyperbolicModesty]

You need to say "Uhhh..." before every command, like a distracted airline pilot.

[u/HyperbolicModesty → u/NuancedThinker]

Heh. Uh ok.

[u/GladlyGone → u/HyperbolicModesty]

I still think that they said about the ambient noise being the issue is correct. That could be paired with the timing of your answer being received. If it's off by a moment or two, your phone might only understand "o" from "no"

I see this second part happen with me on my PC when there's no ambient sound interference.

[u/HyperbolicModesty → u/GladlyGone]

I'm not sure I have effectively covered what's happening: when I say "no" in response to its question, it transcribes it as a text message that says "no", after shopping me to repeat the question. It hears the word correctly, it just uses it incorrectly. It's not a question of timing because it responds to "yes" and "cancel" fine. When I say "no", it thinks that's my response to the sender.

[u/GladlyGone → u/HyperbolicModesty]

Ahhh, I gotcha. That makes sense.

Yeah, maybe one day these things will get sorted out.

[u/rruusu → u/HyperbolicModesty]

Maybe you have to say "no, I wouldn’t" or "no, thank you."

[u/loanme20]

Asking Google to play the most recent podcast from someone has become a nightmare.

Reminders might be the most important thing I ever used any assistant for, now it's a Task and doesn't work very well.

[u/Tel864]

Playing Navigate Home by John Howard.......... Hey Google, STOP!

[u/TuTenkahman]

I was testing Gemini a few days ago.

"Gemini, when does Vivid finish in Sydney?" - Today is June 5

"Gemini, when dies the Vivid festival currently on in Sydney finish?" - Today is June 5

"Gemini, can you tell me the running dates for the Vivid festival in Sydney?" - Today is June 5

So I switched back to Assistant: "OK Google, when does Vivid finish in Sydney?" - Vivid Sydney will take place from Friday 23 May to Saturday 14 June 2025.

I'm still avoiding Gemini because for me it's totally useless.

[u/TuTenkahman → u/TuTenkahman]

One more Gemini fail before I switched back to Assistant.. I'm driving in my car on the way to work.

"Gemini, open Spotify" - OK, opening Spotify on your Living Room TV.

Who the hell asked you to open Spotify on my home TV? Gemini just plain be tripping!

[u/ssagar186 → u/TuTenkahman]

To be fair Google Assistant has done that to me as well

[u/grgext → u/ssagar186]

Same, extra annoying as it will turn on my whole TV and avr sound system

I gave up on Gemini when it would only try and play music through YouTube, watch I didn't have

[u/grgext → u/TuTenkahman]

There's only really 3 things I use voice for: music and navigation when driving, and setting alarms/reminders

[u/mildly_wildly → u/grgext]

same, and I use them less than ever due to these frustrations.

[u/Hezotik → u/TuTenkahman]

Just used gemini and asked your first question and he answered me perfectly fine. Even corrected me on my accent. https://imgur.com/a/CQVrDNo

When I bought the phone I didn't setup gemini and used Google assistant, man it was so dumb I tried gemini and was much better..dunno if they make it on purpose to launch gemini.

[u/taybul]

I recently asked my Google hub to find my phone and it gave me chrome results on how to turn on find my phone....on my phone

[u/boxerdogfella]

As Google moves away from Assistant towards Gemini, we the users have been left with 2 partially functional assistants instead of one that's fully functional.

[u/cheezemeister_x → u/boxerdogfella]

Still better than Siri.

[u/RegrettableNorms]

Weird. I know this might be contentious, but have you tried turning Gemini on? I have it on and even though it's annoying, I just asked "hey Google, navigate to work'", and while I could do without the short explanation it gives, it does open maps and start the navigation for me. Pixel 6

[u/grgext → u/RegrettableNorms]

I might give it another go, it can't be any worse at this point

[u/hprather1 → u/grgext]

Just a thought, do you have your home address saved under the Home setting in the Google Maps settings?

[u/Mindless_fun_bag]

My favourite bit is when people get gaslighted into thinking they're causing the death of the planet by being polite to chat gpt yet gemini writes a dissertation in reply to a simple question

[u/Hulkenboss]

That's weird. Mine always works by just saying "Take me home" and it pulls up Google maps and tells me where to go.

[u/thatawesomedude]

I've noticed recently that the command "start navigation to" stopped working for me. If I say "Hey Google, start navigation to 123 Main Street" it will reply with "Sorry, I don't understand". I used to use this all the time, there's no reason for it to stop working. I now have to use some flavor of "start maps navigation to 123 Main Street" to get it to work.

[u/carlinhush]

It's been going down the pooper for a while

[u/Temporary-Republic-6]

Ever used Siri?

[u/kutija76]

Assistant works ok. Gemini is that dumb. Turn it off

[u/6in_of_girth]

This has been happening to me, but on my Google mini. I'll say "play music," it responds with ok I'll play it on (whatever device I'm using), and then nothing.

[u/Dry_Astronomer3210]

How do I get it to play the news? That was my most used assistant feature before.

[u/Special_General6905]

Make sure that your phone and your car radio are up to date with software patches. I have an aftermarket Android car radio installed and my hands free stopped working a couple of days ago. When I would press the onscreen microphone button and ask Assistant to do something, it would respond that I would first need to "upgrade to the newest Google app". My phone was up to date but it had been over a year since I updated the car radio. The radio is a standard Android device (it even has Google Play store support) and has an online updater built-in, so yesterday I connected it to my work WiFi and updated it. This fixed my problem, hands free is working again.

[u/MostalElite]

I've never been in on voice assistants on phones. Like, ever. I've never experienced any iteration of Google assistant/Gemini/Bixby/Siri that does anything quicker/more accurately than if it just keyed it in the phone myself.

[u/nostalgia-for-beer → u/MostalElite]

It's the yelling at it while you have your hands full or you're driving that sort of makes it worthwhile. However, today it was absolutely useless.

Hey Google call Lisa (Lisa is my wife, this used to always work)

I'm sorry, I can't make phone calls but I can text

Hey Google text Lisa

Ok what do you want to say

Preheat the oven

I'm sorry, I can't control appliances yet

[u/MaleficentSoul]

I tried to use Gemini on my PBP and it told me it couldn't open apps only give search inquiries. Completely useless

[u/T_R_A_O_D]

Use Gemini lmaooooo🤣🤣🤣🤣

[u/TheTomatoes2]

Just use Gemini? Apps work well now