How to set up and use Google Assistant on Huawei Watch 2

By Hayato Huseman
published

From a design and performance perspective, the Huawei Watch 2 and Huawei Watch 2 Classic are both compelling smartwatches in an increasingly dwindling market. Each runs Android Wear 2.0, offering a variety of useful features including Google's powerful Assistant AI. Though Assistant originated as a secondary feature of Allo, it's since grown into one of Google's largest services, handling everything from simple queries to smart home controls.

One of the best parts of Google Assistant is its presence in almost every Android-powered device these days, making it easy to summon from anywhere. Here's how to set it up on the Huawei Watch 2.

How to set up Google Assistant

  1. Press and hold the power button on the Huawei Watch 2.
  2. When prompted, tap Set up on phone to initiate the setup process.
  3. On your phone, you'll be prompted to activate Google Assistant. Scroll to the bottom and tap Yes, I'm in.
  4. Once you're all set up, press and hold the power button again on the Huawei Watch 2 to launch Google Assistant and begin speaking.

How to set up "Ok Google" detection

A great way to quickly activate Google Assistant is by using the hot phrase "Ok Google." Just like Google Assistant itself, it's simple to set up.

  1. Press and hold the power button to launch Google Assistant.
  2. Swipe up from the bottom of the display to access the info panel.
  3. Scroll to the bottom of the list and tap Settings.
  4. Tap "Ok Google" detection and make sure the dot to the left is blue.

That's it! With Google Assistant up and running on the Huawei Watch 2, you can begin asking questions ("what's the weather?" or "how tall is the Empire State Building?") and giving voice commands ("text Daniel" or "set a reminder for tomorrow"). It works almost exactly as it does on your phone or Google Home, though of course, you won't get voice feedback.

Hayato Huseman
Hayato Huseman

Hayato was a product reviewer and video editor for Android Central.

4 Comments
  • Google Assistant and Google Maps on AW make it so hard to try Tizen again. They're key features that just can't be matched with the nicer looking Samsung Gear S3
  • At least for the next few months Google keeps AW as a decent platform. I have a watch barely a year old and it is already out of the update cycle. I am done purchasing new AW until I see some better commitment from Google. I am not going to buy a new watch every year to maybe have the latest AW.
  • I have a classic and it was running very sluggish. I ran across a reddit post mentioning that the "OK Google" detection is what slows AW2 down so much. When I disabled "OK Google" detection, my HW2C runs like it is supposed to and doesn't bog down when trying to open a notification or the applications list. Google really needs to fix this. Another work around is to shutdown and turn on your AW everyday. A reboot doesn't fix it.
  • As already said here, the "Ok, Google" makes the watch slower. i wouldn't say it slows down drasticly for me, but when I turned the detection off everyhting was considerably more fluent. And it's easy to have the assistant hidden behind the upper side button imo :).