Fuck everything about this: Gemini sucks!
post
Well this fucking sucks. Gemini is complete garbage in Android Auto, I thought I was stuck with it until I discovered a couple weeks ago that I could choose to continue using the assistant.
Now it's being ripped from my hands again.
This is total ass. Fuck Gemini. Fuck AI. Fuck Google.
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK
Assistant was awesome. The voice isn't as punchable as Gemini's options.
OMFG.
Gemini is neat, but it SSUUUUUUUUCCCKKS at being a voice assistant.
It will frequently produce a fucking essay in response to being asked to turn the lights on or off.
I just gave it a go again, 30% of the time it pretends to do what you ask without actually doing it. 20% of the time it flat-out refuses while never failing to mention that I really should enable gemini activity tracking. 40% of the time is claims this functionality does not exist, even though it was given the ability to "ask assistant" to do things only it can do (like identify music by listening to it). 10% of the time it will successfully hand off to assistant, which will then instantly do as asked.
The problem is Google is treating all those functions ("tool calling") as just any other response, they didn't even bother training the model to recognize and process the requests properly using the tools. They did the Google thing of just putting the function in and calling a day and forgetting about it.
So without proper reinforcement learning it responds with the same casual randomized answer-shaped sequence of words as ever, you're just lucky if the part of it that knows to look up the tool call instructions responds, and luckier if it does it right AND submit the tool call formatted right. If it forgets to look up it's tool call instructions, it might randomly tell you it can't do it because you got an answer from a part of the network trained on data from when there weren't models that could.
I degoogled (mostly) a while ago, but home assistant has a pretty configurable local voice assistant. If you have remote access to your server, I imagine you could cobble together a good keyword based personal assistant that sets alarms, turns lights on and off, and reads you an RSS newsfeed while you drink your morning coffee.
We're truly on the technological downslope now. First it was all about the user and making software accomplish a purpose, then it was all about the user as long as it was profitable, now it's fuck the user - be profitable.
Personally I went out of my way to put physical buttons around my house so I can use Home Assistant automations without talking. It has the added bonus that guests can just turn the lights on and off without a tutorial.
Wake words are a pain on android but everything else is very doable. I use my local assistant everyday.
Well that's not good. I use it to set alarms fairly often, and up until recently it used to work for navigation. I think me refusing the AI crap made "navigate to 123 main st" quit working.
The timing is crazy, that's around the same time that Google and Android is expected to start disappearing from thousands of phones.
Can the Gemini assistant set reminders yet? Such a basic function of the old Google assistant and yet Gemini has failed every time I tried it in the past
F: play Spotify (activated by multi button on headset)
A: Please unlock your phone yada yada yada
BRO! GUESS WHY I USED THE MULTI-BUTTON >:( I CAN'T USE MY HANDS TO UNLOCK IT AND PLAY MUSIC MANUALLY.
Breaking news, google spyware removed in favour of another google slop spyware
This literally happened to me today while driving
Me: Text wife Gemini: Texting wife, what would you like in the message? Me: Can you pop my lunch in the microwave? I am going to be home in 5 minutes. Gemini: While I can't put food in the microwave for you, I can set a reminder.
What the fuck?
Today was the first day I noticed Gemini instead of assistant, and from the other complaints here, I am not looking forward this. Assistant worked just fine.
Honestly I don't understand how Google is such a valuable company. They are absolutely useless for so much shit.
I use GA to spell shit for me because I have senior moments. It's just easier to click a button and say spell naseaous for me.
See? Fuck that word. Also fuck Google. For more reasons than just this.
It's already dead on my phone
pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox
Need a follow up on this, since I've always assumed that package is essential.
- Is this on a Pixel?
- What happens to the space where the search bar is on the launcher?
- Does it break anything else?
- Nah, I have a non-unlockable Xperia, otherwise I'd just flash custom firmware
- I don't remember the search bar, it disappears i guess. The circle button that used to summon assistant now does nothing
- Deleting this package is safe. Just don't delete system-related packages. Once I was cleaning up someone's Xiaomi and tried to delete its antivirus with adb. It was stuck in boot loop after that so i had to do hard reset (deleting all data)
I'm on graphene and I don't have it even with gsf and google play stuff installed
My grandmother used it for calling. She'd long press the home button and say 'Call Aliya' etc. It has stopped working last week, in both google assistant and gemini. If anyone knows an alternative, please let me know.
I use home automation to help manage a disability and have been meaning to move to home assistant but right now I'm still using google home devices...
Guess that means I have to move up my schedule. Really wish I did this before the ai hardware price spike like I was considering doing.
Can't wait to go see if thin client or needed components will cost me a billion dollars. ALSO BECAUSE OF AI. Fucking stupid horseshit, I have no money
Read the article….
There are no changes on Google TV, Google Home or smart displays at this stage.
Thanks! Meant to come back and give it a read so I could learn specifics but really didn't wanna try to wade through stressful stuff right now
Though my trust it will stay that way is not super high 😅
It was a convenient way to set a kitchen timer. I never used it for anything else but this is still gonna hurt.
Considering when I first upgraded to a phone that included it, Gemini was incapable of setting a timer, I do not have high hopes for this.
This is to say, when I told it "set a timer for X minutes" it produced a UI on the phone that suggested it understood I wanted a timer, but failed the critical step of actually setting the damn timer. I immediately switched back to assistant, as there's really no coming back from a fuck-up that comprehensive.
This was pretty much the only thing I used Google Assistant for. I bought six Google devices. I thought I would use it for more things, but I ended up just using it for timers when making food or when I was resting and wanted to rest for 30 minutes before I do some chore.
That's fine. Google devices have been disappearing from my life as well, so this will not be a long-term problem.
De-googled my phones when they continued pushing this. Google TV is a little harder but turning off voice input and loading a 3rd party launcher fixes most issues for now.
ITT: “how could Google ruin shit and foist worse shit on me!?!”
Bruh, it’s Google.

top 50 comments