How to install Google Assistant on Android Lollipop

Google Assistant is your new voice companion from the company. Google Assistant is Google’s replacement of Google Now. Google released the Google Assistant with massive improvements over its previous voice assistants. It is also Google’s take on Amazon Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana and Apple’s Siri.

Google Assistant can do whatever you tell it to do. To wake it up, you simply have to speak “Ok Google”. The next thing is to tell it what to do. It can call your friends for you, it can text your friends, it can answer your questions, it can look for your queries over the web and a lot more.

Google Assistant supports Android smartphones powered up with Android Nougat or the Android Marshmallow. If your device is running an older version of Android, it may not be possible for you to get it the easy way. Google Assistant is quite cool. I’ve personally used it and I was pretty impressed by it at first.  For this reason, I wanted to get Google Assistant on my old Android smartphones as well.

Luckily, there’s a working method available to install Google Assistant on Android Lollipop-powered devices. What makes this more good is the fact that you do not need to root your phone. You can easily install Google Assistant without making any modifications to your Android Lollipop. Here’s a step-by-step guide to install Google Assistant on Android Lollipop smartphones.

How to install Google Assistant on Android Lollipop

1. For Google Assistant to work on your Lollipop phone, you need to install Activity Launcher on your phone.
2. After installing Activity Launcher, open it via App Drawer.
3. Tap the Recent Activities tab in the Activity Launcher.
4. Now tap on All Activities and locate the Google application. Tap the Google to list its activities.
5. In the Google App Activities list, scroll all the way to the bottom and find out com.google.android.apps.gsa.staticplugins.opa.hq.OpaHqActivity under the Google Assistant.
6. Tap the activity now to create its shortcut on your phone’s home-screen.
7. Now an icon named “Google Assistant” will appear on your phone’s screen.
8. Tap the icon to open Google Assistant. In Google Assistant, head over to the “Your Stuff”.
9. Now in the Your Stuff tab, press Add Reminder to trigger the Google Assistant.
10. Get back to your phone’s home-screen and say “Ok Google”. It will launch the Google Assistant.
11. That’s all. You have the Google Assistant running on your phone now.