Google brings suggestions and spoken answers to Assistant on Wear OS

Google is adding new features to the Google Assistant on Wear OS. In the coming days, users of the operating system can expect smart suggestions and Actions. The assistant will also talk back.

Google introduced the Google Assistant last year to its operating system for wearables, then called Android Wear, and now the company is announcing new functions that should make working with the assistant more pleasant.

For example, the Google Assistant on wearables will propose smart suggestions. These are relevant follow-up questions or proposals, which, according to Google, ‘keep the conversation going’. The user can choose from this. As an example, Google gives a question about the weather, which can be continued after the answer with suggestions to show upcoming forecasts.

In addition, the Google Assistant will soon be able to answer questions via speech instead of text. The answers will then sound from the speaker of the wearable or the bluetooth headset. Furthermore, Actions are coming to all Wear OS devices. Actions are, according to Google, ‘things you can do’ with the assistant and third-party developers can use them, for example, to tap into Google functions with their apps. They are similar to Alexa’s Skills.

In a separate announcement, Google announces that it is making considerable progress with its Google Assistant. It can now connect to more than 5,000 devices in the home. In January it was still fifteen hundred. Google is in a race with Amazon to attract as many partners as possible to support the voice assistant.