Google Wear OS neglect left voice activation stalled for months

Poor bone dying.

Apparently, the Google Assistant on Wear OS has been down for months, and so far no one at Google has noticed. About four months ago, diehard Wear OS users started a public tracking Android issue thread saying the “OK Google” keyword was no longer working on Wear OS, and several claimed that the functionality had been discontinued for months. Recently, news of the 900-user strong thread spilled over to the Android subroutine, and after 9to5Google and other news sites picked up on it, Google finally commented on the issue.

The Verge quotes a Google spokesperson who said the company is “aware of the issues some users are having” and “will address them and improve the overall experience.” Google did not give an ETA for the duration of a correction. Google offered a similar response in this November thread, with a rep saying, “We have shared this with our engineering teams and will continue to provide updates as more information becomes available.”

Wear OS’s faulty voice system is the latest in a long line of signs that Wear OS is a dead platform and has been abandoned by Google. Google’s last major update for Wear OS was in 2018, and many more recent Google services have chosen not to support the platform. Google Play Music had a standalone offline music app for Wear OS, which was great if someone was out jogging and wanted to leave their phone at home. Play Music is now dead and its replacement, YouTube Music, supports Apple Watch but not Wear OS. Google Hangouts is another dying Google app that supported Wear OS, but its replacement, Google Chat, does not support the operating system. Google Fit’s updates a few months ago killed the Wear OS bodybuilding feature, which was one of the best parts of the platform.

Wear OS’s hardware was a disaster as well. Qualcomm stifled the platform by letting it go six years without a significant SoC upgrade, which led to sluggish hardware that struggled to run the latest features. All the major hardware companies that supported Wear OS – brands like Samsung, LG, Motorola, Huawei, Asus, and Sony – have ditched it. Wear OS devices are now only sold by fashion brands.

Google’s new wearable device venture is with Fitbit, a company recently acquired for $ 2.1 billion. Years ago, Fitbit was a pioneer in the field of cheap, simple step counters, but today the company has a single-digit market share as well. Fitbit hasn’t been able to keep up with the low-end pressure of cheap Chinese fitness trackers and high-end competition from the Apple Watch. It’s unclear how the combination of the struggling wearable device company Fitbit and the failing wearable division of Google will lead to any success, but at this point all we can do is wait and see. watch.