Now that Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4 supports both Google Assistant and Bixby, this watch is one of the best smartwatches, if not the best watch, to pair with your Android phone.
Yes, Google Assistant is finally here for Samsung Galaxy Watch4 users to download and install via the Play Store in select regions. Just make sure you install Google Assistant on your watch AND your paired phone.
Once installed, set up, and activated, you need to say “Hey Google” into your watch to launch Google assistant completely hands-free. Or you can set it up to launch with the press of a button.
While Google Assistant has been available for some time now on other wearOS watches such as the Fossil Gen 5/6, this is the first time that Samsung Galaxy Watch users using Wear OS 3 can download and use voice commands with Google Assistant.
And if you love Bixby, the good news is that you can use both Google Assistant AND Bixby on your Samsung Galaxy Watch 4–you don’t need to choose between the voice assistants!
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As promised by Google and Samsung, Wear OS 3 users can finally choose between using Bixby or Google Assistant as their watch’s active voice assistant.
It has almost been close to a year but we finally have the Google Assistant on Samsung Galaxy Watch4.
Download, setup, and activate Google Assistant on Samsung Galaxy Watch
The first thing to do is to download the Google Assistant from the Google Play store on your watch.
- Open Google Play Store on your Samsung Galaxy Watch.
- Alternatively, you can open the Google Play store on your phone and search for Google Assistant. Just make sure to choose ‘Watch’ as the device.
- Alternatively, you can open the Google Play store on your phone and search for Google Assistant. Just make sure to choose ‘Watch’ as the device.
- Tap My Apps and look for Google Assistant. It should show up as a pending Update.
- If you still don’t see it, make sure you install Google Assistant onto your paired phone, then return to the watch’s Play Store.
- Make sure your country supports this feature. At this time, Samsung offers Google Assistant to the Galaxy Watch 4 in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, the UK, and the USA.
- Tap and download onto your watch.
- Depending on your location and network speed, downloading may take a minute or more.
Update getting stuck?
While trying to download directly onto your watch, if it gets stuck or says cannot update, disable the Wi-Fi on the watch and then try and download.
It should use the Bluetooth connection and successfully download the 11 MB package directly into your Galaxy Watch.
Just remember to turn Wi-Fi back on once it successfully downloads to your watch!
The next step is to set up and activate Google Assistant on your watch
- Once you install the app successfully, tap on Open and then Get Started to launch the Assistant’s setup for your Galaxy Watch 4.
- Tapping on ‘Get Started’ begins the activation process.
- This prompts you to open the Google Assistant app on your phone.
- Click on ‘Activate’ at the bottom right corner of the screen.
- During the setup process, you can decide if you want the watch to wait in standby mode in order to be in real hands-free mode using just the voice command “Hey Google.”
- Tip: The hands-free mode uses more of the watch battery. You may want to skip this step if you are concerned about saving battery power on the watch.
- The next piece of the setup process walks you through a series of voice activation.
- Finally, you are led to a screen where you ‘Turn On’ assistant personal results and allow Assistant access to your calendar, reminders, contacts, messages, etc., on your watch.
- Now you are all set up and should be able to find the Google Assistant app directly on your Samsung Galaxy Watch 4.
Watch not responding to Hey Google voice command?
If your Samsung watch doesn’t activate Assistant when you say Hey Google, try restarting your watch and phone.
If your watch still isn’t recognizing Hey Google, make sure you set it to work in standby (hands-free) mode.
Finally, you might need to retrain Google Assistant to recognize your voice.
To do that, open Assistant on your phone.
- Go to Explore > your profile icon > Settings > Hey Google & Voice Match.
- Select Other devices and tap Teach your Assistant your voice again.
- Choose Retrain and follow the steps to reprint your voice to the Assistant.
Top 11 things you can try with Google Assistant on your Samsung Galaxy Watch
Now that the Google Assistant has been installed on your Galaxy Watch 4, open up the app finder screen, locate Google Assistant and tap to launch it.
- Check your local weather by asking “Hey Google what’s the weather like” and it will bring up your local weather. The hands-free option is fantastic. You still have to use ‘Hey Google’ to launch the Google assistant in this version.
- Check the traffic before leaving home. “ Hows the traffic to the airport today?”
- Make a call or send a text directly using Google Assistant. “Hey Google, can you call XYZ?” It should directly call the contact from your watch.
- Set up an Alarm or delete all alarms on your watch. “Hey Google set up an alarm for 7 am tomorrow’
- Check your Flight status right from your Galaxy watch
- Play Music. “Hey Google Play Music (**) from Youtube Music” launches the track directly on your phone. If you are a Youtube Music subscriber, you can now play music directly on your watch without having the phone.
- Use language translation skills. “Hey Google How do you say see you tomorrow in Italian”, and it translates your voice and provides you with the right pronunciation of the translation right on your watch
- Check Sports schedules. “ Hey, Google, what is tomorrow’s NBA game,” it shows you the game details and the game’s timing.
- Ask for any information, and it automatically picks up the Google Search results. Try “Hey Google who is the greatest quarterback of all time”
- Check the information on local businesses. Try “ Hey Google where is the closest Starbucks”
- You can also set up a timer using Google Assistant. This is handy for Samsung Galaxy Watch users who had to rely on other timer apps on the watch to get things done.
Beyond these usual ones, you can query stock prices, add items into your shopping list, create a new shopping list, look for the cheapest gas station and more.
How to set up Google Assistant as the default app on your Galaxy Watch 4
It’s time to bye-bye Bixby from your Samsung Galaxy Watch finally!!
- Tap on the Settings app on your Galaxy Watch.
- scroll down and tap on ‘Apps.’
- Next, tap on choose default apps.
- Here you can set up Google Assistant as your default app instead of Bixby.
Where are the Google Assistant Settings for my Samsung Galaxy Watch?
During the original setup of the Google Assistant on your Samsung Galaxy Watch, you helped the setup process pick up the relevant settings. You can now quickly go back and change some of these settings or personalize them as per your preferences.
The easiest way to launch the Google Assistant settings is via your phone. Open Google Assistant on your mobile device and say “Hey Google open Google Assistant settings”
This opens up the Google Assistant settings on your phone.
Scroll down on the screen and tap on ‘Devices’. Here you can confirm that the assistant is linked to your Samsung Galaxy Watch4.
If you use a language other than English, you can tap on ‘Languages’ and set up your preference on this screen. Choose ‘Add a Language’ to get started.
If you are going to use Google Assistant for phone calls or sending texts, make sure to scroll down on the Google Assistant settings > Basic Info > Phone number and plug in your phone number here. Service providers will use your phone numbers to contact you for reservations, customer support, etc.
Tap on Music and set up your default music provider. That way when you say “Hey Google play something”, it doesn’t prompt you for a music service provider. Instead, it uses the default service that you have set up in the Google Assistant settings.
Finally, you can tap on “Your data in the Assistant” in order to review the information that is saved when you engage with Google Assistant on your Samsung Galaxy Watch.
One element that is missing in the Google Assistant integration with Samsung Galaxy Watch is health data. Fitbit Versa / Sense owners can use GA to query info like “How did I sleep last nite?” or “ How many steps did I walk today”. Unfortunately, we could not find the necessary integrations to health data on this version of Google Assistant.
The Google Assistant is available for the Samsung Galaxy 4 starting today in select regions. Be sure to check out the Google Play store and see if you can download and start using Google Assistant today!
Please let us know if you have any questions or if you want to share a tip or two regarding using the assistant on your Galaxy Watch.
