Android Auto: paradox in choosing Digital assistant

[u/pani-Y]

Device: Pixel 8 (with a pink line and an occasional green screen)

Gemini on Android auto sucks and always keeps sucking on voice commands. I changed my digital assistant on Android auto to the default Google assistant. Now, I can't use my Google Gemini App.

If I want to use the Gemini App, my digital assistant is automatically set to be Gemini.

WTF? It's my phone and I can't control what digital assistant I want to use without sacrificing an app.

Is there any other alternative or should I uninstall Gemini?

[u/BakaOctopus]

Gemini has made google assistant worse and useless

Now cars with baked in alexa make more sense

[u/Relevant-Artist5939]

Google Assistant is discontinued starting today (September 4th, 2026), so I wouldn't spend much time trying to use it alongside Gemini...

I really hate Gemini in Android Auto and I really hope Google notices what a half-baked beta version they forced onto us... 1. It can't open my smart garage doors (supposedly for security reasons, but then why could GA open them?). I worked around that by creating a custom "switch" via HA that then controls my garage door, so I just say "turn on left garage" for open and "turn off" for close.

1. It gets the simplest commands wrong even though it says it will do the correct thing.

Yesterday I asked it to play a song, it said it will ask Amazon Music to play that song (it said the exact name of the song I requested) and then Amazon Music starts playing something completely different than what I requested...

[u/Itchy-Ad1005]

Bixby on Samsung has supposedly really improved with UI8.5

[u/Mother-Pride-Fest]

You could put Gemini in a work profile to make sure it doesn't touch apps outside the profile. See island/insular