The Pixel Buds Pro offered a convenient feature called Google Assistant Notifications. It reads your notifications out when you tap and hold the touch interface. This feature was widely cherished and one of the reasons many consumers opted for the buds.
For the past couple of days, users have been confused about the feature not working and have assumed it was a glitch. In a brief announcement posted on the Google Assistant Help page, the Pixel Buds team recently confirmed that the functionality has officially been discontinued. The feature has been removed across the Pixel Buds series, affecting the entry-level $64 Pixel Buds A. What a bummer.
Google announced that “Assistant will no longer read unread notifications when using the press Assistant feature” and that “Assistant will also no longer read unread notifications automatically and allow you to reply.” It provided no further elaboration; all it added was that it’s evaluating “further changes to notifications.” I’m concerned about other potential downgrades coming down the road.
According to the announcement, the new way to have the Pixel Buds read out notifications is to activate Google Assistant and say, “Read my notifications” to them aloud. I don’t know when earbud manufacturers will understand that we don’t like talking to a piece of hardware in public. It’s the last thing I’d want to do on the Subway.
The announcement makes it apparent that Google doesn’t see this as a downgrade. The post ends with a thank you for our “continued feedback that enables [them] to improve [our] experience with using Google Assistant, ” as if this is a feature we asked for.
It’s extremely unfair to market your product using a range of features and then quietly remove one of its key functionalities. Customers paid for this feature when they shelled out $200 for the buds—which isn’t a small amount. The touch-and-hold gesture on the Pixel Buds has now defaulted to cycling between Active Noise Cancelation and Transparency Mode, previously one of the two options you could assign.
With all this happening around a week before the flagship Pixel Buds Pro 2 ships, I wonder if it will affect their sales. We know that the second-gen Buds Pro will introduce Gemini capabilities, so we’re going to spend a lot of time talking to them anyway.