Google swapped Assistant for Gemini on the Streamer and called it an upgrade, which in my experience is the word companies use when something is being removed as well as added. The pitch is natural voice: ask for a film that two people with different taste will both sit through, ask what happened at the end of last season of a show you dropped, ask what the new drama everyone keeps mentioning actually is. Press the mic button on the remote and it goes.
What I want to know from anyone further into this than me is what broke. Assistant on the Streamer was doing double duty as a smart home controller through the home panel, and the box is still sold as a Matter and Thread hub. If your lighting and thermostat commands still work with the same phrasing, fine. If Gemini decided your bedroom lamp is now a search query, that is a real regression on a device you partly bought for the hub.
The recap stuff I am mildly positive about. Streaming apps are terrible at telling you where you left off across a two year gap, and a spoken season summary beats scrolling a wiki on your phone with the show paused. The homework and recipe examples read like they were written for a press release rather than by anyone who owns the box.
Anyone still on the older Chromecast with Google TV, has this reached you at all, or is it Streamer only so far?
What I want to know from anyone further into this than me is what broke. Assistant on the Streamer was doing double duty as a smart home controller through the home panel, and the box is still sold as a Matter and Thread hub. If your lighting and thermostat commands still work with the same phrasing, fine. If Gemini decided your bedroom lamp is now a search query, that is a real regression on a device you partly bought for the hub.
The recap stuff I am mildly positive about. Streaming apps are terrible at telling you where you left off across a two year gap, and a spoken season summary beats scrolling a wiki on your phone with the show paused. The homework and recipe examples read like they were written for a press release rather than by anyone who owns the box.
Anyone still on the older Chromecast with Google TV, has this reached you at all, or is it Streamer only so far?
