When Gemini Comes to Pixel Buds Your “Hey Google” Will Change

As Google moves everyone over to Gemini as the on-device Assistant, we’re continuing to learn about changes and the bumps in the road we made incur. In an email going out to Pixel Buds owners today, Google has tried to explain what’s about to happen when you say “Hey Google” with your earbuds in.

Hey Google change: Google explains in the email that they “Hey Google” setting for your Pixel Buds is no longer a separate setting from your connected Android phone. Instead, in order to fire off that command with earbuds in, you simply need to have it enabled within your Google Assistant settings (or the Gemini app). This is a simplified way of getting you Assistant controls, although we’ll have to see if there are any meaningful changes to the interactions and experience.

You can read more on this change here.

Gemini coming to Pixel Buds: The other note in this email says that Gemini “will be coming soon to Pixel Buds” and should work if Gemini is set as your default assistant without you needing to do anything.

Unfortunately, “some Pixel Buds features may work differently” with Gemini than they did with Assistant, Google explains. That’s likely because Gemini is still missing features from Google Assistant. As an example of what I believe they are referring to, I tried to ask Gemini to play my liked songs from Spotify and it straight-up told me it can’t talk to Spotify yet. Sad.

In another awkward twist, Google also shares in the email that to first use Gemini with your Pixel Buds, you’ll need your phone to be unlocked and connected while you wear them. You can then talk to Gemini and get personalized responses like you expect. However, once you disconnect your Pixel Buds and put them back in later, you would need to unlock your phone again in order to re-activate that experience.

There’s a setting for this in the Pixel Buds app>Digital Assistant>Only Require One Unlock.

Let us know if you need more on any of this.