Google’s Next Feature Could Make Wear OS More Like The Spy Kids Watch You Always Wanted
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Summary
- Google might be adding a new method to activate Assisant (and eventually Gemini) on Wear OS.
- “Raise to Talk” could let you activate your voice assistant just by raising your watch to your mouth, no wake word required.
- It could work similarly to the Apple Watch’s “Raise to Speak” feature introduced in 2018.
It’s a pretty good time to be a Wear OS fan. From the refined Pixel Watch 3 to the rugged Galaxy Watch Ultra and the big, long-lasting battery found in the OnePlus Watch 3, anyone shopping for an Android wearable has plenty of options to pick from. If there’s one space where Wear OS isn’t succeeding at the moment, though, it’s with Assistant support. As Gemini moves to become the next-gen assistant service we’ve always wanted, Google’s looking to make its virtual helper a little easier to access with the help of a handy gesture.
AssembleDebug, writing for Android Authority, recently dug through code found within a recent Google app beta and discovered evidence of a new smartwatch-specific feature called “Raise to Talk.” Although AssembleDebug says there’s not much to go off of in terms of stray strings, context clues point towards the ability to raise your wrist to your face, automatically triggering Assistant (or Gemini) without needing to use an obnoxious wakeword. In other words, the Spy Kids-like smartwatch you’ve always wanted, though potentially with the caveat that this could be a Pixel Watch-specific feature.
The Apple Watch could give us a good idea on how this works
If ‘Raise to Speak’ actually worked as intended, that is
As Android Authority points out, it’s a trick that’s already available on the Apple Watch, and has been there since 2018, when watchOS 5 first debuted. In theory, that should give us a good idea on how a similar “Raise to Talk” feature would work on Wear OS, but after enabling Raise to Speak on an Apple Watch this afternoon, I’ve had it successfully work exactly one time. I can’t find any information on whether Apple has worked to improve this feature in the years since its initial watchOS 5 debut, but considering the amount of complaints and troubleshooting on Reddit, I doubt it.
Still, just because it doesn’t work well on Apple’s wearables doesn’t mean it couldn’t work here. Even before Assistant began the long, drawn-out road towards obsolescence, I’ve never been much of a voice assistant user on watches, and a big part of that comes from how annoying activation methods are. I already hate wake words — “Hey Google” especially — and needing to hold a button down makes me want to pull my phone out instead, where those sorts of commands are usually processed with much more speed.
But considering the Pixel Watch 3 is as excellent as it is, I’m choosing to remain hopeful that a Google-specific approach to bringing your watch closer to your face to activate Gemini could be the main way I interact with the company’s LLM. As usual, it all depends on how well these sorts of tricks are pulled off. Don’t be surprised if we see something like this appear at either I/O next month or during the Pixel 10 unveiling later this year. Now if only Google would get to work on those zoom-enhancing glasses Juni Cortez uses in The Island of Lost Dreams.
