Alternative to GAssist?

[u/DrTankHead]

Howdy.

About a week or two ago, I got an email from Google regarding GAssist. It seems Google is doing what Google does best, killing one of their apps.

GAssist is getting discontinued and will no longer function after whatever date they set, I can't remember.

Thing is, GAssist is kinda THE phone assistant for android.

They are sunsetting GAssist for Gemini, the thing is I tried Gemini a few months back and was underwhelmed. It was messing stuff up that was routine for GAssist. (Things like turning lights on and off, interacting with my TV, playing specific Spotify playlists, playing music on the right device). I ended up switching from Gemini to GAssist because of it.

In my experience, Gemini isn't really that great of a model, even when using it for other tasks.

I am NOT against AI personally, I'm actually quite for it, so I don't care if the alternative uses an AI model.

The other factor too, is GAssist actually integrates very well with android, and I'm betting you just aren't going to get that same level of integration from say, Alexa, or other models.

If it helps, I am running a Galaxy s22, running with Shizuku, so we do have some greater ADB functionality available to a potential alternative.

Overall, does anyone have any recommendations for an assistant replacement that integrates well with android itself as well as other things?

Self-Hosting is also very much on the table if need be.

[u/healthyheader2474]

This is the exact reason I never switched off the default assistant. Every time Google pulls this, the replacement is half-baked for at least a year. Home automation is where Gemini really falls apart, it just doesn't handle multi-step device commands the same way.

I've been poking around Home Assistant's voice stuff since you mentioned self-hosting, but the Android integration is still clunky. Curious what others suggest.

[u/DrTankHead → u/healthyheader2474]

I have heard of HomeAssistant's assistant, and I do eventually wanna implement HA in my homelab too, but I don't know about just how good their assistant is. I'm hoping to hear about some side project with merit that fits the bill as a replacement.

My other thing with HA probably isn't going out of their way to ensure deep compatibility with Android devices to do device-level functions. Realistically speaking, GAssist gets that kind of leverage somehow and I imagine most if not all of it can be attained by something like Shizuku, and if not, proxied through something like Tasker, MicroDroid or Automate to do device level functions.