What you need to know
- Google and Samsung have announced that Assistant is available for the Galaxy Watch 4 series on Monday, May 24.
- Galaxy Watch 4 owners will want to install the Assistant app directly to their watch in order to access it.
- Users will be able to activate Google Assistant hands-free or by assigning it to a button gesture.
We're swiftly approaching the Galaxy Watch 4's one-year release anniversary, and until now, we still have not had access to Google Assistant. There was some hope that Google or Samsung would make an announcement during the I/O 2022 keynote. And while we did get some confirmation, it wasn't the news that Galaxy Watch 4 owners were hoping for.
That's all about to change, however, as both Google and Samsung have announced that Google Assistant for the Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic will be available on the Google Play Store on Monday, May 24. You'll find a new standalone app in the Play Store that can be downloaded directly on your watch, or from your paired Android phone.
As of the time of this publishing, the app wasn't readily available for download just yet. We'll update this article when it's more widely available, which should be sometime over the next few hours. Once that happens, you'll just need to search for Google Assistant on the Play Store on your Galaxy Watch 4 and hit that shiny download button.
Samsung provided the following statement alongside the announcement:
With the Wear OS update that opens access to Google Play, Galaxy Watch4 owners will be able to download Google Assistant – enabling fast and more natural voice interactions. The update will also give users access to Google Pay, Maps and YouTube Music.
Once Google Assistant has been downloaded and activated, it can be run in the app tray of the watch. Users can also invoke Google Assistant by voice or by assigning the home button to run it with a press and hold. It can also run independently on Galaxy Watch4 – meaning it can be used on the watch even if Google Assistant isn’t installed on your phone.
What makes this even better is that you don't need to have the separate Assistant app installed on your phone in order to use this new functionality. Instead, you can download the Wear OS version from the Play Store, and will still get the same functionality as you would expect.
We're still waiting for the update ourselves, but you are also now supposed to be able to invoke Google Assistant with just your voice. Or, you can assign it to the Home button on your Galaxy Watch 4, and activate it by pressing and holding down on the button. From the onset, it appears as though this is exactly what we wanted, as Assistant can function as a standalone entity living right on your Watch.
Following the announcement of Wear OS 3 at Google I/O 2021, the Galaxy Watch 4 arrived with much fanfare, only for its owners to learn that Assistant was nowhere to be found. Since then, we've only learned bits and pieces, but there was hope for an earlier launch last month following a new software update for the Verizon version. Unfortunately, it seems that Verizon simply jumped the gun with its inclusion of Assistant, only to redact the changelog later.
Nevertheless, Assistant is finally here for the best smartwatches, and you can download the app now.
The best of Wear OS
Samsung's Galaxy Watch 4 may be a bit older now, but it's still the only smartwatch to be powered by Wear OS 3. That's set to change in the fall, but the overdue addition of Google Assistant is sure to entice a lot of potential owners.
