I was a heavy voice user of the old Google Assistant, as well as Google Home/Nest speakers, and have really grown to hate its Gemini based replacement on my phone. So often it screws up with basic commands that were intuitive and reliable on the old Assistant. It’s also slower and feels like a waste of resources to query an LLM for simple device and smart home commands
I think there is a way to bring back Assistant on your phone, mine still has it.
I was trying to stick with the new one, but I just caved and put it back. I have started cussing at it when it responds incorrectly
You also don’t have to use whatever Google wants you to use. You can change the default assistant, though I don’t use any voice assistant so I don’t know what alternatives are out there, besides home assistant which is probably a bit much for most people.