Activating Google Assistant by saying ‘Hey Google’ has been broken for months, according to a report by 9to5google. Google says that it is aware of this functionality problem and that it is now working on fixing this issue. According to a report by The Verge, Google stated that the company is ‘aware of the issues some users have been encountering’ and will help its partners ‘address these and improve the overall experience’.
Apparently, many users with different Android smartwatch models have been complaining about this voice command problem as far back as November 2020, this is according to reports on Google’s Issue Tracker. Users say that the Google Assistant is still usable but that they have to activate it manually with a long button press and that although the feature is still available and present, they find it harder to access the Google Assistant.
Although the reports on Google’s Issue Tracker date back to November 2020, a few users have mentioned that ‘Hey Google’ detection has not worked on Wear OS since April or May 2019, which was when Wear OS app version 2.24 was released.
Google’s statement doesn’t state exactly when this voice activation will be fixed or how long it will take until it is fixed, but the statement makes it clear enough that Google is well aware of the problem. However many users are not happy about the fact that it took this long for the problem to be noticed and taken into consideration. The uncertainty about when Google will fix the problem only leaves users, once again, in the dark.
While Wear OS may not be core to Google’s strategy, the Assistant seems to be. The Google assistant is one of core selling points of the Wear OS smartwatches, and being that it is one of the reasons people go for it, it would be nice for people who have chosen to buy Google’s Wear OS, to be able to activate it using voice command.
