C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google’s Nest Hub and Audio have stopped responding to basic commands for many users.
- The problem started a few days ago and still persists.
- Simple things like the weather or time cause Assistant to run and load endlessly, without providing a response.
Updated: January 3, 2024 (1:06 a.m. ET): Google told us that the issue should now be resolved for most users.
“The team is still investigating the root cause but has fixed the issue, so all users should be up and running now,” a Google representative said. Android Authority by email.
Original article: January 2, 2024 (10:24 a.m. ET): I came back from my Christmas vacation a few days ago to find that my Google smart speakers and displays had decided to completely ignore me. I asked a simple question: “Hey Google, what’s the weather like?” — the same question I’ve asked countless times before, but all I got was the animation loading for several minutes and no response.
At first I thought it was a geolocation issue, but the weather displayed accurately on my Nest Hub screen and gave me full details if I manually clicked on it. It was just a bug with voice commands.
Knowing that my Google speakers have recently decided to go against the grain (maybe because I use Gemini on my phone?), I told my husband to try it. It had the same endless loading animation. We repeated this on our second-generation Nest Hub and two Nest Audios, to no avail. The Pixel tablet seemed random. We unplugged them all from power, restarted our router, plugged them back in, and reconnected them to no avail. We also tried changing the Assistant’s voice, turning multiple languages on and off, still to no avail. I recorded the video below to show you the problem in action.
I also tried other voice commands. Turning off the lights or starting vacuum work is what many smart home controls do. Playing music also works. The setting of timers is random. Multiple users are I’m complaining about the exact same problem on Google Support Forumsand they say this also happens on the Nest Hub Max as well as the first generation Google Home and Google Home Mini. Some have completely reset their speakers to see if that would fix the problem, but it hasn’t.
Like all of these reports, these are very basic commands that trigger my speakers. “What’s the weather like?” » or “What time is it?” making the Nest Hub and audio completely stupid. As if the speakers were negotiating among themselves and trying to see which one should answer me without being able to find the right one. Most of the time, it’s my nearby phone that answers me first. This was happening over three years ago when I was on a crappy 2 Mbps connection, but it has never happened on my 600 Mbps+ connection since then.
Are you facing this same problem? Let me know in the comments, please. I’ve reached out to Google for comment and will update this article if I hear back.
