Ron Amadeo
Poor Wear OS.
Apparently, the Google Assistant on Wear OS has been broken for months, and so far, no one at Google has noticed. About four months ago, die-hard Wear OS users started a discussion on Android’s public issue tracker saying the “OK Google” hotword no longer worked on Wear OS, and several claimed the feature had been broken for months. Recently, news of the 900-user topic spread to the Android subreddit, and after 9to5Google and other news sites published it, Google finally commented on it.
The Verge quotes a Google spokesman as saying that the company is “aware of the problems that some users have encountered” and will “fix them and improve the overall experience”. Google did not give an ETA on how long a correction would take. Google offered a similar cliched response on that November topic, with a representative saying, “We share this with our engineering teams and will continue to provide updates as more information becomes available.”
Wear OS ‘broken 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 to Wear OS was in 2018, and many of the latest Google services have chosen not to support the platform. Google Play Music had an independent offline music app for Wear OS, which was great if someone was running and wanted to leave the phone at home. Play Music is over and its replacement, YouTube Music, is compatible with Apple Watch, but not Wear OS. Google Hangouts is another Google app that is dying and has great support for Wear OS, but its replacement, Google Chat, does not support the operating system. Google Fit updates a few months ago eliminated the Wear OS weight training feature, which was one of the best parts of the platform.
Wear OS hardware was also a disaster. Qualcomm stifled the platform by letting it go for six years without a significant SoC update, leading to slow hardware that was having trouble running the latest features. All the major hardware companies that previously supported Wear OS – brands like Samsung, LG, Motorola, Huawei, Asus and Sony – have abandoned it. Wear OS devices are only sold by fashion brands now.
Google’s new adventure in the wearable segment is with Fitbit, a company it recently acquired for $ 2.1 billion. Years ago, Fitbit was a pioneer in simple and inexpensive step counters, but today the company is also managed with single-digit market share. Fitbit has not been able to adapt to the low-cost pressure of cheap Chinese fitness trackers and high-level competition from the Apple Watch. It is unclear how the combination of Fitbit’s failed wearable company with Google’s failed wearable division will lead to any kind of success, but at this point, all we can do is wait and watch.