After almost a year of waiting, we finally know when Google Assistant will arrive on Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4 lineup. Kind of. In a blog, Samsung executive vice president Patrick Chomet announced the long-awaited feature will arrive this summer. as for when this summer, it’s anybody’s guess.
Chomet writes that Google Assistant on Wear OS 3 will enable “faster and more natural voice interactions” as well as the ability to look up quick answers while on the go. He also noted that it would be possible to control Spotify with Google Assistant on the watch.
A big reason why Samsung opted to work with Google to create a unified Wear OS 3 platform was the Google Play Store. Samsung’s smartwatches had historically been a way for it to push its ecosystem of products and services, including its voice assistant Bixby. The promise of Wear OS 3 was that Android users would get a greater say in which apps and assistants they could use. So if you were someone who hated Bixby with the burning fire of a thousand suns, you could instead download Google Assistant.
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Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge
The only hitch is that Google and Samsung were never very clear about when Google Assistant would arrive. In updates, both companies tended to use vague allusions that can be summarized as, “It’s coming. Later.” For example, in February, Samsung released some new health features for the Galaxy Watch 4 and merely noted that Google Assistant would arrive “in the coming months.” Just two weeks ago, Verizon accidentally released an update log that seemed to imply Google Assistant had arrived — but that wasn’t actually the case.
The timing of this announcement makes a lot of sense. Not only has Google just officially announced the Pixel Watch due later this year but it would also be noted that other Google services arrive on the Wear OS platform. That includes Google Home and Google Wallet.
Today’s announcement, while wandering, at least narrows that time frame. That said, your interpretation of what counts as “summer” may not be the same as what Google and Samsung have in mind. Many people tend to think of June, July, and August as the summer months. However, if you were to go by equinoxes and solstices, summer 2022 is defined as June 21st to September 22nd. Also, given that the Pixel Watch is slated for this fall, it wouldn’t be surprising if we see Google Assistant arrive toward summer’s end. So, you can expect Google Assistant relatively soon — though how soon is still up in the air.