You can create an account on an Android phone that has no SIM or other accounts on it without being required to provide a phone number. Use an old wiped phone just for this.
Can confirm. I opened this post outside, and was immediately swarmed. The last thing I saw before my eyes were pecked out was someone bearing a strong resemblance to Alfred Hitchcock..
Yeah, the Google Minis are hit or miss for us a lot, too. I don't generally have the keyword activation switched on with my phone, but was going to activate it if need be for this. I've got a Bluetooth headset with very good background noise cancellation (according to those I've spoken to on the phone), so I'm hoping/assuming that will help it understand me more reliably, and that Assistant activation via its button will obviate the need for turning on keyword activation.
Replying to my own post in case anyone's following this (still too new to Lemmy to know if that's a thing - guess I'll look into it after this).
Apparently, Moto may be working on something that fills this need. The promo video in this article only demonstrates things I think Google Assistant might already be capable of (or maybe slightly more), but the article states what they're working on involves using apps on your phone to do things rather than just being a microphone and speaker for stuff that actually happens mostly on Google's servers. Crossing my fingers that includes doing what I want rather than just being focused on buying things as demonstrated in the teaser video.
In the meantime, I've stumbled across the fact that Google's built-in TalkBack feature has support for keyboard shortcuts. This likely means I can use a small handheld Bluetooth game controller along with an app to map the buttons to the appropriate key presses in order to move around the screen, and thus control the Android device without looking at or touching it. That means using Google Assistant to launch the apps, and the controller to actually use it via TalkBack. I'll likely test this next weekend & report back if anyone's interested.
ETA: Forgot to mention: remembered that my kid has an iPad required by his school some years ago, but so far as we can see the capabilities are roughly on par with Android so switching platforms doesn't seem to be the answer.
Not a category in interested in, but I did take a spin through your collection on GitLab. You lost all credibility with me when I saw your top web browser pick was Brave.
You can create an account on an Android phone that has no SIM or other accounts on it without being required to provide a phone number. Use an old wiped phone just for this.