Loss of Continued Conversation on Home Devices After Gemini Switch

[Adrock]

I’m writing to express deep frustration with the recent change from Google Assistant to Gemini on my smart-home devices.

Before this forced transition, Google Assistant included a free and essential feature called Continued Conversation, which allowed the Assistant to listen for several seconds after a response for follow-up commands. This made interactions feel natural and fluid, exactly what a voice assistant is supposed to do.

Now that my devices have been switched to Gemini, that same feature has effectively been removed and replaced by Gemini Live, which is only available through a paid Home Premium subscription. In other words, I’ve lost functionality that was previously built into my devices unless I pay an additional $10 per month.

This feels like one step forward and two steps back. Users never had the choice to remain on Google Assistant, and yet a feature that has worked for years is suddenly being treated as a “premium” option. It’s beyond disappointing — it feels unfair and, frankly, deceptive.

From a consumer standpoint, this raises serious concerns:

Google devices were marketed and sold with “Continued Conversation” as part of their advertised functionality.

Users purchased these devices with the expectation that such features were included as part of the product experience.

Removing this capability and putting its replacement behind a paywall feels like a breach of trust, if not bordering on misleading business practice.

I already pay for a Google One subscription, and I strongly believe that Gemini Live should at least be included in that plan, or better yet, offered free to all users as a continuation of the functionality we already had.

Please reconsider this policy. Don’t penalize loyal users for adopting Gemini — especially when the “new” feature simply replaces something that used to be free.

[DADCORE]

I’m so disappointed to find out that I can’t use continued conversation the way i have for years and years. It’s now so clunky to say Hey Google every time. And I’m not paying for a subscription for a feature I already had. Insane. 

[SquattingHen]

Paying for it doesn’t bring it back either. I am a premium member and it doesnt work anymore. 

[BGO1982]

Ah, darn.  Was hoping I was just missing something in the configs, but it seems they've really screwed the pooch on this update... as seems to be the usual these days.
Bait and switch is right.

[R_Ov]

Chiming in - I feel the exact same way and noticed the missing feature immediately. 

[clawhamm3r]

Found this thread because I just switched to Gemini and discovered this feature was missing. /Sigh 

[Iholguin]

Yes I absolutely agree that removing a feature that was once a really functional part of the whole app experience is now part of the paid tier seems ridiculous. I understand on one side offering a tiered level of services that maybe we would have to pay for to receive more options. But removing already available services and features and making them paid. That's not the way to do it.

[dmgthib]

Not only do you have to pay for a subscription, you also have to upgrade to the newest Google devices. This was an absolute mistake on Google's part!

[StevenG]

I just came off of a support chat with Google and was told a couple important  things:

(1) Continuous conversation is not available with Gemini.  The closest thing to it requires both having a Gemini subscription and, once you have that, to begin every voice command with "Hey Google, let's chat."    You basically have to put your smart device into AI mode even to just set a timer or turn off a light if you want to be able to follow up with anything.

(2)  Once you transition your smart speakers/displays to Gemini, you cannot revert back to Google Assistant unless you create a new home structure and reassign all of your devices to that newly created home.  You will also need to recreate all of your rooms and speaker groups.  There are plenty of instructions available online that suggests that all you need to do is change your settings in Google Assistant.  Those instructions don't work.

[SquattingHen]

Hopefully the agent just didn’t have all the information, or the information will change. If this is how the devices will function from here on out, the average consumer is going to hate it. Guaranteed they will just use Alexa. Alexa is cheaper and has a better interaction now for sure. 

[metroknowm]

Here's the interesting thing about the "let's chat" "premium feature" of Gemini ... It doesn't even accept smart home commands.

This is without a doubt one of the worst productization decisions in the history of modern technology companies. I suggest we create an online petition to request a few specific things. At the very least of which should be a continuous conversation mode as per previous support, whether or not they want to lock it behind a paywall is up to them, but they absolutely need to support this functionality by default. The let's chat feature is not the same thing whatsoever. It doesn't support the same use cases.

[metroknowm]

If all I need to do is set up a new home, I may do this. I figured it was attached to my Google account in perpetuity. Setting up a new home will only take an hour or so.

However, this doesn't address several key issues that have been identified in these threads, and eventually Google will require the user to upgrade to Gemini for home, so we need to address these issues via petition initially, and secondarily via class action suit if necessary.

[TedTheDev]

The lack of the ability to roll back to the non-Gemini versions also makes me regret trying this out. There was not a clear warning this was a one way transition on my Google Hubs, and now previously working commands just don't. This was a functionality update, not a security or bug fix so rolling back should ALWAYS be an option. I shouldn't need to change how I turn on/off lights and timers in my kitchen or other common tasks. Huge regrets at this point on trying this out, and even buying the devices...

[metroknowm]

And this is a major sticking point. Nowhere in the sign up process for Gemini for Google home did Google issue a warning that it could not be rolled back. They have set a precedent with regard to rollback of Gemini functionality historically. They should have gone absolutely out of their way to provide several warning messages and confirmations for the user when choosing the upgrade.

[BrianDivaCox]

You're all forgetting! This is still beta. You opted into a early preview  🤷🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️

[Bear81]

I hope you're right, but early access is different than the public preview that was requesting user input: Public Preview for Google Home app - Google Nest Help https://share.google/2ihPtzQXL4G12FTW3. Since there are three different tiers (one free), I think this is the full version.

[SquattingHen]

You know what….you have a point there. 

[jawaulk]

Used this feature every day. Without it gemini is definitely a downgrade for me from assistant, taking away the number one feature that I used.

Welcome to the en**bleep**tification of google.

[jawaulk]

Oh and when asking gemini why it does not listen it says google does that to protect our privacy. Oh ok they don't care about our privacy when using assistant only gemini???  Makes me feel like the real reason is that the compute costs are so much higher on the gemini AI compared to the google assistant that they don't want to pay for the extra cost of it continuing to listen for a couple seconds.