Samsung’s Older Smart TVs Are Losing Support for Google Assistant
- Laurent Giret
- Feb 05, 2024
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Samsung has quietly announced that it’s removing Google Assistant from its older Smart TV models starting on March 1, 2024. In a support page spotted by someone one the Samsung Community website(via FlatPanelsHD), the company explained that the removal of the Google Assistant is “due to a change in Google’s policy.”
Starting next month, Google Assistant will be removed from Samsung’s 2022 and 2021 Smart TV models, as well as the company’s 8K and 4K QLED TVs, Crystal UHD TVs, and Lifestyle TVs from 2020. Samsung’s 2023 smart TV models had already started shipping without Google Assistant, so it’s probably not surprising that the Korean company is now removing it from all of its older smart TV models.
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Even though Samsung didn’t go into specifics, Google Assistant lost a couple of underutilized features last month, and this did affect Assistant-enabled devices such as smart TVs, smart D-displays, and speakers. Some of the features that are now discontinued include setting or using media alarms and rescheduling an event in Google Calendar with your voice.
In recent years, Google Assistant has been competing with Alexa on most smart TV models on the market. TV remotes now come with dedicated shortcuts for streaming services and AI assistants. As of today, Google Assistant can help users find shows and movies to watch, but it can also be used for non-TV stuff such as controlling smart home devices or getting updates about the weather or your agenda. Alexa can do pretty much the same things if you prefer that ecosystem.
Samsung also integrated its own Bixby assistant on its smart TVs, though it has more limited language support and is generally considered to be inferior to other AI assistants. However, that could eventually change: Samsung has started dabbling with generative AI technology with new “Galaxy AI features” on its new Galaxy S24 series. This seems to be a general trend as last year, Google also teased Assistant with Bard, a new version of Google Assistant with generative AI features. Amazon has also started bringing similar AI features to Alexa last fall.