Gemini AI Supercharges Your Smartwatch Experience
Your smartwatch is about to become a lot more productive. In a major update for wearable tech, Google is bringing its powerful Gemini AI assistant to your wrist for the first time.
The news was officially announced during Samsung's recent Unpacked event, where the new Galaxy Watch 8 series was also revealed. The Galaxy Watch 8 and Galaxy Watch 8 Classic will be the first smartwatches to ship with Gemini built-in. However, the update is also scheduled to roll out to newer Pixel watches, the OnePlus Watch 3, and smartwatches from Oppo and Xiaomi later this month.
A More Natural Conversation On Your Wrist
Gemini on Wear OS is designed to handle your voice commands more naturally than any assistant before it. This means you can speak to your watch casually, without needing to use stiff, robotic phrases or constantly repeat yourself. The result is an assistant that feels faster, more conversational, and closer to a human interaction than previous digital assistants.
Gemini In Action First Impressions
During a live demo at Google's New York City headquarters, Gemini proved its ability to handle long, stream-of-consciousness questions without missing a beat.
For example, a request for "that famous bridge shot in Brooklyn that's all over social media" immediately pulled up the correct landmark. From there, a simple follow-up of "show me photos" displayed images of the bridge, and a final "take me there" command brought up directions, all without needing to repeat the location's name.
What truly stands out is how Gemini delivers results. While past assistants might give partial answers or push you to a website, Gemini summarizes the information aloud in a natural-sounding voice, often removing the need to even look at the watch screen.
Seamless Integration and Complex Tasks
Gemini excels at handling more complex, multi-step tasks. When asked to research the cooking time for a soft-boiled egg, it not only found the answer but also automatically set a timer for the correct duration.
Messaging is also streamlined. Instead of the usual process of finding a contact, dictating a message, and confirming, Gemini can handle it all in a single command. In one impressive demonstration, a tester asked Gemini to "find trendy Korean restaurants in New York and text Laura in Korean to see if they want to join." The AI completed the entire task flawlessly, even composing the message accurately in Korean.
How It Works and When You Can Get It
While Gemini has been a powerful presence on Android phones for the past year, its goal on Wear OS is to free you from having to pull out your phone for common tasks. The AI processes requests via the cloud, so your watch will need a stable internet connection through your phone, Wi-Fi, or LTE to function.
Gemini will debut on the new Galaxy Watches and will roll out in the coming weeks as an automatic update for any Android smartwatch running Wear OS 4 or later, as long as it's paired with a phone that has Gemini AI.
