Have you ever wanted to use Google Assistant on your computer? Unless it’s a Chrome OS machine, you’ve probably been out of luck. Now, however, a savvy developer has managed to put together an unofficial Google Assistant client for Windows, macOS and Linux, but it’s a bit complicated.
Let’s start with the good. This unofficial Google Assistant client from Melvin L. Abraham (available for download on GitHub) looks fairly good. It has a sleek design that works well with Assistant on other platforms. It’s a bit of a mix between a smart display and the interface you see for Assistant in Chrome OS. It even has a dark theme and a light theme to suit you. There’s also a hefty settings menu with auto-start options and more detailed controls. Notably, there is also a keyboard shortcut to launch the app and the microphone. On Windows, it’s Win + Shift + A. It’s also nice that the app stays at the top of the user interface.
Functionally, this app seems to work relatively well, but not perfectly. Basic commands work fine, such as asking for weather information or general questions. Some more advanced features also work, such as smart home controls and message broadcasting, but you may find that some of those commands don’t have a proper user interface. Some can also charge slowly.
Many other commands do not work either, such as playing music or assistant routines. Notably, another customer claims to support Spotify and other music players.
What’s the catch? Since this is an unofficial customer, there is a lot of of work to get all this done. If you’ve seen Assistant’s unofficial port on Samsung’s 2019 Galaxy Watch models, the process may seem relatively familiar. The creators of the project have an excellent detailed tutorial on Github. Essentially, the process comes down to using Google Cloud to use the Assistant API.
Being unofficial, this could technically stop working when Google decides to discontinue it. If you’re concerned about the security of your account, using a backup or burner account with smart home controls shared from your main account can be a good measure, but the app only uses Google’s official APIs to handle all of this. let work. they use Google in a way technically does not support.
If all goes well, you can probably get things working in about 10-20 minutes. In my case, I ran into an ‘unexpected exception for’ error that I couldn’t bypass without clearing the app’s data in Windows.
Personally, I am so glad this exists. I’ve wanted a good desktop client for Windows for years, because I love to quickly run smart home commands on my Chromebook when I’m working with it. Whatever interest this app sparks in the community, I hope it’s enough to grab Google’s attention so that the company finally gives us something official, even if it’s just a web app!
H / T: Android Police
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