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  • Pixel watch google assistant "continue on phone"

I realise that there are plenty of people who don't find smartwatches useful and who (with good reason) wouldn't want to use Google assistant. However, I have obtained a Mk.I Pixel watch to try out and I'm interested to see if I can make Google assistant work on it, despite such concerns.

Currently, trying to enable Assistant on the watch tells me to continue on my phone. On the phone, the Play Store opens in Firefox at the Google app page. I can then choose to open the Google app, and the process stops there.

Perhaps I've not granted sufficient permissions to Google's various apps. Or, it may be that this is something unsupported by GrapheneOS and will require a stock OS (I hope not). Or, something else. Does anyone know?

You need Sandboxed Google Play installed first. Then you need the Google app, and Assistant app both downloaded and installed, as well as set the Google app as your default digital assistant in Default Apps. (in Settings -> Apps)

That will make Assistant work. You can swipe from a corner of your screen towards the middle of the screen to activate Google Assistant then!

There are a lot of assistant settings to go through, in both the Assistant and Google apps. The Google App is the one you grant permissions to, that affect what the Assistant can and can't do. Ex. Needs SMS permission to send SMS, phone permission to call someone. If your contacts are in your Google account doesn't need Contacts permission, otherwise it does if you want it to send messages or call people by name, not #.

You'll need to allow Assistant to access your watch apps somewhere in the Assistant settings...

You can replace assistant with the Gemini AI as well! Read my other post on this forum, at the end:

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/12307-my-early-ride-through-grapheneos-what-works-what-doesnt-and-guide/2

Thanks for replying.
I do have Sandboxed Google Play and the Google app installed, with the latter set as the default assistant. Google Assistant appears to be working on the phone.
I couldn't find any assistant settings relating to the watch - perhaps I need to connect the watch to the assistant first, which doesn't seem to be possible as the watch doesn't seem to realise that the Google app isn't installed and instead prompts me to install it (as above).
A downgrade to stock is tempting as I could also make use of call screening, but I'll wait for a bit before going that far.

    knirirr You can get call screening and hold for me on GrapheneOS too! just download the Google Phone app from the Play Store!

    Oh! just thought of this, try giving the Google app permission to manage notifications in Device and App Notifications, or maybe that and Usage Access. Both are in Special App Access at the bottom after you click on Apps in Settings!

    You can also get Gemini, Google's AI to be your assistant. Regular Assistant still takes care of a few things Gemini can't do, but it's pretty cool having something like ChatGPT be your own assistant on your phone!

    A full how to do that is at the end of my guide. Also in there is how to get every Google feature I could figure out how to make work on GrapheneOS, since that's what I did when I first got onto GrapheneOS! I didn't think it's point was to degoogle, I thought it's point was to make me more secure and private, and the fact Sandboxed Google Play was there was so I could use Google stuff and still have more privacy and security! Check it out!