Get ready to say bye bye Bixby
Samsung has finally added the ability to interact with Google Assistant on the Galaxy Watch 4, after first teasing the support when the smartwatch launched in 2021.
The ability to access Google’s smart assistant is now possible in 10 countries, which includes the US, UK, France, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Once you’ve negotiated the setup process, you’ll be able to long-press on the physical home button on your Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 or Watch 4 Classic to have a chat with the extra assistant.
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This means, along with access to Samsung’s own Bixby assistant, you can alternatively turn to Google’s equivalent and say ‘Hey, Google‘, to handle doing things like playing your favourite music or controlling smart home kit via voice.
There isn’t an OTA update needed to get it, and the app should automatically install to your watch when you next sync it with the Wear OS companion app.
It’s the latest move by Samsung to better integrate Google apps and software into its latest smartwatch after it made the decision to swap its own Tizen platform for Google’s Wear OS.
It remains the only smartwatch available that runs on Wear OS 3.0, the latest version of Google’s smartwatch OS, which Samsung helped to rebuild and revamp. Prior to adding Assistant support, Samsung had already included Google apps like Maps, YouTube Music and Google Pay on the Watch 4.
Samsung’s own Bixby smart assistant hasn’t massively impressed us since it was added to Samsung’s Galaxy Watch range while Google’s own assistant in contrast has steadily improved over time. It’s still arguably not as well integrated into the smartwatch experience as Siri is on the Apple Watch, but it feels more likely that Bixby could end up being phased out to focus on ramping up that Assistant integration.
While Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4 seems to have a bit of an exclusive on Wear OS 3.0 right now, we know that new smartwatches are coming from other Wear hardware partners that should get that Google Assistant love too.
That will also include Google’s very own Pixel Watch, which was officially teased at its I/O developer conference and is expected to land in the Fall this year.