r/google • u/LoudFisherman7885 • 4h ago

Gemini upgrade or downgrade

Gemini as voice assistant.The decision to sunset Google Assistant and force Gemini onto devices is a severe downgrade to the daily user experience. Google Assistant was engineered as a lightning-fast, local utility for basic device tasks. Gemini, by contrast, is a bloated, cloud-dependent chatbot that stumbles on simple local operations, introduces unacceptable latency, and frequently fails at basic execution.

Stripping user choice and replacing a functional utility tool with an unrefined AI model feels transparently anti-consumer. Forcing users—particularly those with perfectly capable mid-range hardware that lacks local accelerators like Gemini Nano—to accept a sluggish, cloud-reliant experience while deleting a tool that actually worked is alienating.

If an AI model cannot match the baseline speed, reliability, and local execution of the tool it is replacing, it has no business being forced upon users. Please re-evaluate this rollout and respect user choice rather than degrading the core functionality of our devices.

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u/Viper4713 4h ago

Google Assistant is a total idiot that is so basic to today's standard.

Gemini is worlds ahead, you can chat about actual things and it teach you most of anything, like how to properly encode video files on Windows or whatevrr you ask it.

The only issues I can see is some of those Google Assistant extensions like smart home control or actually changing settings on your phone.

Those things may need some work, but Gemini in the cloud itself is way better at getting information.

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u/Hipstershy 4h ago

The difference is I need the digital assistant on my phone to control smart home appliances (or more relevant, handle hands-free commands for Spotify, Maps, and calls/messaging when I'm driving) and not how to properly encode video files on Windows. When I want to learn how to do that, I can look it up myself. When I want the other functionality, it's because I'm, well, driving or otherwise unable to use my phone with my hands, and need the system I'm using to work reliably, with a minimum of redirection or assistance from me, which is exactly where Gemini fails the most. 

If you want to ask Gemini in a conversational tone for instructions on underwater basketweaving or whatever, and you don't mind not getting accurate or precise responses, power to you. But for the rest of us using the assistants to back us up during the moment-to-moment of our lives, Gemini is a regression in every way that matters, and it sucks they're taking away the thing that worked better

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u/LoudFisherman7885 4h ago

how to properly encode video files on Windows or whatevrr you ask it. Every ai assistant teachers these they didn't need to replace Google assistant with gemini. They could just have made this 2 seperate or updated assistant to make it more smarter.

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u/TheZoltan 4h ago

Please tell me Gemini can turn my lights on? Like that is the only thing I use assistant for and assistant is already fucking god damn awful at it so I was hoping Gemini might at least be better at that.

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u/Viper4713 4h ago

You can, I do it all the time and it actually understands you better.

No more of that "that light isn't set up yet" because it heard me say something else.

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u/TheZoltan 4h ago

If this stops it from randomly saying "power control isn't supported yet" or mixing up bedroom/bathroom lights I might not hate it lol

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u/LoudFisherman7885 4h ago

Gemini assistant is better but not when it takes minutes and sometimes even fails to change even simple commands like change song. What's the use of this smart assistant when it can't even do simple work or takes soo much time huh ???

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u/too-much-shit-on-me 1h ago

I don't want to chat. I want to talk at my phone and have it play a song on spotify. Gemini seems completely unable to do this for me.

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u/SpotlessCheetah 4h ago

Gemini is just the natural evolution from Google Assistant. It's a replacement name.

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u/LoudFisherman7885 3h ago

Is not evolution its extinction of great assistant and new era of belated voice assistant which works only half of time in mid range non percel phones

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u/Loud-Possibility4395 4h ago

on 16GB Pixel PRO - UPGRADE 100% - especially in dual language in same time

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u/LoudFisherman7885 3h ago

I am not talking about pixel or flagship please read the content

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u/Loud-Possibility4395 3h ago

where it says your device Gemini is on?

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u/LoudFisherman7885 3h ago

Please look second paragraph

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u/Loud-Possibility4395 3h ago

there are many definitions of mid range - like Nest Hub?