Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
Google Home devices are in for a significant reform. On October 1, Google will announce Gemini for smart speakers and displays and subsequently replace Google Assistant with it on these devices. And we have huge expectations from this upgrade.
Gemini has big shoes to fill. Google Assistant has shouldered the load of the entire breadth of commands intended for smart speakers for nearly a decade. However, the recent decline in Google Home’s ability to understand or execute commands reliably has prompted a desire for an upgrade. Thankfully, that could be coming with Google’s announcement next month.
We asked our readers what they think about Google’s plan to upgrade the existing Google Home devices and empower them with Gemini, and we got an almost unanimous response.
Are you looking forward to Gemini on your Google Home devices?
Out of the 8,500-plus votes we received from our readers, an overwhelming majority said they were looking forward to Gemini taking over as the new assistant for Google Home-enabled devices. Only a small fraction said they did not want the upgrades, while the second largest share of voters said they were happy with either choice, so long as it gets their work done without a hassle.
A lot of comments on the posts where we listed this survey suggest that the underlying platform doesn’t matter much, so long as the existing functionality doesn’t break.
Now, with the update arriving soon, there will unfortunately be few options for users. Most of the updates are likely to be automatically handled by Google, and little can be done to stop them from installing. Google hasn’t revealed the exact plans for the rollout on older devices, but we can hope for it to be before the end of this year. However, we have several demands from Gemini on smart devices. My colleague Rita El Khoury has seven — some generic, while some very specific — expectations from Gemini on Google Home.
Commenters have also pointed out the growing need for smart speakers to understand more complex requests. They expect not having to remember a specific chain of words to get work done, which has also been an issue for newer users. And the shift from Google Assistant to Gemini could resolve that.
At the same time, there are some concerns about Gemini failing to replicate the same reliable performance as Google Assistant for specific requests or routines. That can be an issue primarily since Gemini isn’t completely immune to hallucinations, and we’ve witnessed it throwing incorrect responses until asked to back its claims by sources. Therefore, the skepticism is also justified.
Meanwhile, another one of our colleagues, Karandeep Singh, believes that new software alone won’t suffice and that Google must introduce an entirely new hardware lineup to complement the new voice assistant. Thankfully, Google has already teased a new smart speaker that could be designed with Gemini in mind. However, the effectiveness is still due for scrutiny.
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