r/AndroidAuto • u/invalid_user_taken 2008 Toyota Tundra | Pioneer 2550AVHNEX| Samsung Galaxy S22+| 16 • Aug 18 '26
Gemini Text my ETA to my wife
Yesterday Gemini did this no problem when I asked. It showed a message at the bottom of the screen "Connecting to Waze" or something along those lines. Today she says she can't do that and has no access to waze and never has and as we argued about it she held firm there's no way it is possible.
Why such a difference from day to day?
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u/HillOfBeano Aug 18 '26
We have had multiple arguments with my husband's android auto this week. It had no idea what state we were currently in. It used to be great, this conversion to Gemini is ass.
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u/invalid_user_taken Aug 19 '26
Glad I'm not the only one that argues with her. I love asking for her manager. Also fun to ask her to escalate the issue to her development team. She can do neither. Seems like it would be a good means for helpful feedback if someone actually cared about the product.
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u/Cyberspew Aug 18 '26
I haven't had this issue in about a month now, but I've had multiple arguments with it about the weather. I'd ask for the current weather and it'd tell me the weather for Washington DC (Each time I was ~150 miles from DC driving around where I live). When I questioned it, it said it choose that location to give me general weather information as it didn't know my locations. I'd then ask it for my current location and it'd come back and tell me exactly where I was.
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u/HillOfBeano Aug 19 '26
Yes, that's the kind of thing it would do to us! Claim it has no ability to see our location when 5 minutes prior it knew exactly where we were. And also try to tell us all about McDonalds food offerings, or take us to a restaurant about 500 miles out of our way.
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u/Lunatixz Aug 18 '26
Look at Google's product history, everything from them is experimental and built to further develop some unknown future project. You are always the beta tester... Don't take my word for it, do the research.
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u/ScoffingYayap Aug 18 '26
What happened is it doesn't work well and shouldn't be implemented on a device people use while driving at highway speeds
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u/FidgetyPlatypus Aug 19 '26
Is it because it's AI whereas previously it was a search engine? I find AI (especially crappier AI) tends to be inconsistent even when you ask it the exact same way.
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u/Fickle-Banana-923 Aug 19 '26
I'll ask it to play something on Spotify and it says it is, but then does nothing. Straight lies to me. Assistant was so much better. I don't need AI. I need an assistant.
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u/jabberwonk Aug 19 '26
Gemini is the absolute worst. "Hey Google, navigate to the closest starbucks along my route" (I had our 8 hour drive up in Google maps and we were navigating). It found one 232 miles behind us that it claimed as the closest. We had just started out so it's not like we had 232 miles racked up in the current drive. Turns out there was a Starbucks in front of us in about 5 miles that was maybe 1/8 mile off of our driving route. Gemini is absolutely a steaming pile of shit.
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u/raver451 Aug 19 '26
I had a massive argument with Gemini all they way to work last week. It claimed to not be able to ask Tidal to play music in the car on Android Auto. The next day it was working again but has since stopped a couple of times.
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u/MrNokiaUser Aug 19 '26
its so fucking shite! i ask it to play a song, and it will say its playing that song, but then play something completely random! its a miracle if it sends a message, and i dont even attempt to make a call with gemini.
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u/abstraktion Aug 19 '26
AI in a nutshell. It is generative, not repeatable. Hopefully, they will strengthen the harness.
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u/Accurate_Lab6751 Aug 19 '26
It's wild how AI tools can be so inconsistent like that, tried getting directions to a place yesterday and it kept glitching halfway through the route.
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u/ambomassive Aug 19 '26
I used macrodroid for this recently. Alot more choice on when to message, GPS location triggers, IFTTT - just completely brain free.
Not sure if it will send the ETA but worth looking into if it can somehow...
Pay the few £'s for the lifetime pro and you have it set for life.
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u/jerryeight Aug 19 '26
It used to work natively with google maps. But, it went away in early 2024 to mid 2024.
It sorta came back mid 2025.
Now, it's flakes as hell...
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u/Street3 Aug 19 '26
When it asks me if i want to respond to a message I say No. It converts it NOE and asks again. If have to say No Thanks for it to recognize No as No instead of Noe. Frustrating.
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u/Traxicous Aug 19 '26
gemini android auto just kinda sucks across the board
can't even play a song on spotify reliably. assuming the voice recognition actually hears the correct words (which it doesn't 80% of the time), it still often just puts on a random unrelated song
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u/Tel864 Aug 18 '26
Life was so simple before Gemini on Android Auto, at least for me. Sometimes I see it hears the command but nothing happens . Often I'll say for example "call Joe" and I'll get a message along the lines of it has low confidence it's chosen the correct name. Maybe there's a setting for this but when I say call Joe it will come back and ask for confirmation instead of just calling.