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Google Assistant is finally coming to Samsung‘s Galaxy Watch 4 series. The company has confirmed that users will be able to download Google’s digital voice assistant to their devices this summer. The announcement came as part of the Google I/O developers conference Wednesday.
Samsung first announced that it is joining hands with Google to develop a unified smartwatch platform that brings the best of the former’s Tizen OS and the latter’s Wear OS at Google I/O 2021 a year ago. The collaboration gave birth to Wear OS 3, one of the biggest updates ever to the platform.
The new and unified platform debuted on Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4 series later that year and has remained exclusive to those smartwatches so far. But Google Assitant, one of the key features of the company’s watch platform never made it to Wear OS 3. Both companies promised to bring the AI-powered virtual assistant to the Galaxy Watch 4 but nothing has materialized yet. This left Galaxy Watch 4 users with Samsung’s not-so-competent Bixby voice assistant.
There have been some hopes recently with Samsung itself teasing Google Assistant support on its newest smartwatches. Now, we have an official confirmation from the company too. With summer almost here, it’s not a very long wait now.
Google Assistant will open up a lot of possibilities for Galaxy Watch users
Google Assistant has no comparison in the Android space and Samsung is looking to leverage its capabilities to enable an enhanced hands-free experience for its Galaxy Watch users. The company says it is working on improving Assistant integration with third-party apps. For example, users will be able to change songs on Spotify over voice commands with Google Assistant.
Going forward, Samsung says Galaxy Watch users will get more optimized Google apps and services. Perhaps it’s just the beginning of what Wear OS will bring to the Korean behemoth’s smartwatch lineup. The company sees the shift from its in-house Tizen OS to Wear OS as a huge step in the right direction and that’s exciting for us consumers.
“There are now more than three times as many active Wear OS devices as there were last year. We see this growth in our wearables as just the beginning of even greater things to come,” said Patrick Chomet, EVP and Head of Customer Experience Office at Samsung’s mobile experience division. “We’ve just scratched the surface of the potential of our partnership with Google and what’s to come for our users.”