Dicio offers free on-device voice assistant for Android, lacks Android Auto support

What changed. Dicio is a free, open-source voice assistant on the Play Store that the ZDNET author installed and began using as Google Assistant is set to be discontinued. The author frames it as a replacement specifically for tasks where Gemini had been unreliable, with hands-free calling called out as the headline win. Setup involves granting microphone permission, downloading a speech-to-text file, and downloading a wake-word AI model; the wake word is 'Hey, Dicio' (pronounced 'diss-eee-oh'). The app is treated by the author as a default daily driver rather than an experiment.

What adopting it costs. Dicio is missing several capabilities the author expected from a phone voice assistant, and those gaps are concrete. It does not integrate with Android Auto, cannot send messages or compose emails by voice, does not support note-taking, and has a reported bug in its calculations feature. Some non-default apps also fail to open even when Dicio claims to have launched them. For an engineer deciding whether to point users at Dicio, the Android Auto gap alone disqualifies it for in-car use, and the messaging gap rules it out for hands-free correspondence.

The privacy angle. Dicio's stated design, as quoted from its GitHub page, is that it interprets user input and, when possible, generates user output entirely on-device, providing privacy by design. The author treats that as a meaningful benefit compared with cloud-based assistants. It does not mean Dicio never reaches the network: it can search the internet, navigate via Google Maps, and control Spotify, so the on-device claim is about the voice and assistant pipeline, not a sealed-off device. Users still depend on whatever third-party services the active skill shells out to.

What adopting it requires. Installation runs through the Play Store with a setup wizard that handles permissions and the speech-to-text and AI model downloads, so deployment cost is low. The downloaded models are stored locally, so the app performs its core voice recognition and assistant logic without round-trips to a Dicio service. Wake-word listening requires microphone access, which the user grants during setup, and the app exposes wake-word listening as a skill the user can toggle. Skills the article lists include weather, internet search, song lyrics, opening apps, calculations, navigation, calling contacts, timers, media control, jokes, translation, notifications, and a flashlight toggle.

Where the story's value sits. Only one feed carried this event, so corroboration is thin and the framing is entirely a single author's hands-on experience. The reliability claims rest on the author's reported testing of specific tasks rather than any measured benchmark, so they are evidence but not a systematic comparison. For an engineer, the takeaway is that Dicio is a plausible short-term Assistant replacement where hands-free calling and on-device processing matter, with the Android Auto gap as the hard disqualifier for automotive use.