Google says it’s working to get “Hey Google” to work on Wear OS again

Activation of the Google Assistant by saying “Hey Google” has been on hold for months, according to a 9to5Google report. Google tells The edge he’s now working on a fix, saying he’s “aware of the issues some users are having” and will help his partners “fix them and improve the overall experience.”

Quite a few users are reporting the issue – one post on Google’s issue tracking has nearly a thousand stars. Reading the thread, it is clear that many users with different smartwatch models are all reporting the same issue since November 2020. They say that the assistant is not completely unusable, as users can still trigger it with a long press of a button, but if the voice activation feature hasn’t worked for that long, it probably doesn’t help the perception that Google doesn’t care about Wear OS.

Google’s statement doesn’t say how long it will take before the issue is resolved, but I hope it gets some attention now. While Wear OS isn’t at the heart of Google’s strategy, the Assistant appears to be, and it would be nice for people who chose to put Google’s operating system on their wrists for easy access. .