Stephen Schenck / Android Authority
Google promised that Gemini would be available on Google Home smart devices by the end of October, and the company kept its promise. Or did it? While on paper, Gemini has indeed become available on Google Home smart devices, its limited regional availability means that most users are still stuck with the unfortunately incompetent Google Assistant. And those who have received the update aren’t very positive about it.
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We asked our readers if they have received Gemini on Google Home yet, and the answer is an overwhelming “no.” Out of 1550+ voters, only 180 people had received the Gemini update on their Google Home smart home device. 88%, i.e., over 1,370 voters, had not received the update, a week after Google began rolling it out.
Similarly, when we asked how people liked Gemini on their Google Home, most hadn’t received the update yet to try it out and form a judgment. Of the over 1,230 voters, a good 970 hadn’t received the update yet, representing 79% of the votes.
So far, Gemini is only available in the US, and that too, only to people who had registered for Early Access. We haven’t yet spotted reports for a general and broad rollout, so most average users are unlikely to have had a chance to try out Gemini.
Of the 259 people who have received Gemini on Google Home and voted in our poll, 28% people loved the update and found that Gemini is much better than Google Assistant that it replaced. Another 36% find it acceptable, as it could improve after a few issues are resolved. However, 36% of people did not like it, claiming that Gemini falls short of what Google Assistant offered on Google Home.
Comments are less kind on Gemini on Google Home. One Android Authority reader commented that they aren’t a fan, and their family keeps asking them to put the “original lady” back on. Another reader called it “not intuitive at all.”
Reader coutts.lincoln did not have a good experience either. When they asked for the time of the next train from their local station, Gemini gave them the history of the train line. The reader allegedly tried out different prompts, but they got the history again and again.
A couple of comments also find the $10 monthly subscription for a Google Home Premium subscription not to their liking, especially since they find the free service disappointing enough.
Hopefully, Google is aware of user experiences and is working towards a broader rollout. It’s a bit early to judge the success of Gemini on Google Home, given the limited scale of this rollout. We hope the broader rollout happens sooner rather than later.
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