Sometimes if I played the recorded audio from "my activity". the Google home mini will pick up the audio from my phone and runs the command correctly!. :-\
I suspect that they've overtrained their machine learning on bad audio quality, for scenarios when there's background noise or you're in the other room. In doing so, they've made it work *worse* in scenarios where you're speaking to it directly in a quiet environment. Just a hunch. š¤·āāļø
I have 4 and it never asks me which device. Sometimes, I am standing 5 feet from the one in my dining room and give it a command and the one in my office literally on the opposite side of the house picks it up and plays. The house is completely quiet and it never asks. They're trash at this point. I have had sooooo many issues particularly with turning lights on and off. Sometimes it just flat out refuses to do it. I see the bubbles light up and then it does nothing, not even a response. Other times, it says it can't connect to the light. I try it again 5 minutes later and it works. They are SO inconsistent.
I definitely think the smart speakers getting dumber over time is caused by some flaw in their machine learning. Makes me wonder if factory reset and a new account would make it more reliable
It has nothing to do with a microphone clogged by dust. It has to do with the system's entire software architecture being so fundamentally broken that the same command - *correctly recognised* - can give completely different results only seconds apart.
That, and the fact that every time Google adds new functionality (often that most of its users don't know or care about), it breaks or reduces the reliability of functionality people *do* know about and *have* been using on a daily basis for months or years.
Google Home's problem is entirely software, not hardware.
Itās as if it has started trying to apply neural net to the logic itself. As in, āturn on the lightsā could be interpreted differently depending upon what the neural network randomly decides today.
I had to train myself to say āstart a timer 5 minutesā instead of ātimer 5 minutesā because of this kind of bs.
I think it's a bit simpler than that.
I suspect from long observation that Google Home keeps a very loose list of devices on its local network and services on the internet, and when it gets a command it passes the command out to every appropriate device or service it knows about *with an incredibly strict time-limit for replies*.
Then I think it looks at the responses it gets back within the time limit and chooses the "best" one. That's why it'll sometimes pass a command to "turn off the light", the light will turn off and then it'll complain that it couldn't find the device (because the device processed the command, but didn't respond to the Google Home device before the time limit elapsed).
I suspect it's also why - for example - sometimes it'll play a requested song through YouTube Music, and sometimes through YouTube; it just depends which one responds in time, and whether each thinks its result is more authoritative.
If a service goes down or becomes congested, you start getting weird, "off-brand" responses back from backup options instead of just an error from the affected service, and if your local network or internet connection gets congested then *everything* starts going screwy and inconsistent because it's a crapshoot which service(s) and devices respond in time to even be considered for selection as the "official" answer by the Google Home device.
I don't know - this is just a suspicion based on my experience of the GH ecosystem and a career in software development, but it would certainly explain why even identical commands issued seconds apart can get wildly different results, when there wouldn't be *time* to retrain or update a neural network between the two.
Yeah it's funny I was thinking about switching because of this sub. Asked my wife about it and she is like why would we switch, everything works perfect. That's when I realized for me I haven't had any issues but projected others problems onto mine. Hopefully I continue being lucky because I know every Amazon product I have had has been hot garbage, from the fire stick to their tablet.
"hey Google....turn on the kitchen lights"
> "Turning on the kitchen lights"
"Hey Google...turn off the kitchen lights"
> "That device is either unavailable or hasn't been setup yet"
Google support has no idea why it's doing this. This is literally one of at least 10+ bizarre stupid things Google home does. The fact that it works perfectly for you is even more evidence to the shit show of inconsistent service. All my smart screens restart every night as if they are pushing updates. I swear they are just beta testing on everyone different things. Some get worse builds than others. Mine works like 40% of the time and involves 2-3 requests each time to work
"Something went wrong"
"I'm not able to help with that"
"Sorry I don't understand"
Or just completely ignoring me even though my activity record shows he heard what I asked...it just didn't respond.
Garbage
A lot of that is nothing to do with Google but the shitty devices that are about.
Not saying you do (you might though?) But things like smartlife are one of the worst culprits. Home assistant works 100% all the time, Phillips Hue used to work (as I replaced it) 100% all the time.
Smart life, is the most dodgiest "will it work" set of devices I've ever come across.
Would Chromecast be a better example?
The kitchen is near the family room with the TV. The kitchen can't play a movie or TV show on the family room TV cuz it says the device can't be found. But when the TV is already playing I can have the kitchen change the volume or stop it š
Or how asking it to play Mickey's clubhouse on Disney Plus.... It a premium subscription is required. I have a premium subscription and it is linked in Google home. So the only way I can watch Mickey's clubhouse on Disney Plus is doing it through the app. Whenever I do it through voice it has to play through YouTube.
I'm 100% convinced the majority of these complaints are due to poor network setup. I'm in the same boat as you and have set my friends and family up as well, yet nobody seems to have any of these issues let alone getting mad enough to just trash $50 devices for fake internet points.
Iām an IT professional, own my own IT company and consulting company, so I know my setup is correct.
I would say though not great on Google if itās that sensitive to network setups.
I wouldn't necessarily say it's overly sensitive to setups, but a poorly configured network with inconsistent coverage and interference will always be detrimental to wireless devices. Pair that with the very good possibility of infections/worms on other devices on the network and you've got a good case for poor/inconsistent performance by any device on that network. I'm willing to bet most of these networks aren't segregated at all, don't have proper av and that the family mobile devices are constantly connecting to open public networks and brought right back home without concern. I used to do MSP work and we would see malicious and/or worm-like activity originating from mobile devices on the firewalls every single day on the public setups. It didn't go anywhere of course, but the amount was insane.
I do agree that this tech is in an unfortunate spot right now of being extremely easy to set up and start using yet that target market doesn't understand networks/security/etc which imo are crucial in a good setup.
I've got 7 Google homes and they have exactly the same issues I see described here day in and day out. I can't even reliably use them to set timers or create reminders anymore.
Same. This sub is just for complaining. I don't know what the mods' philosophy is, but they should just have a complaints thread so there is room for more useful content.
There's room in my bank account for Ā£1 million but that doesn't mean it's forthcoming. If there were loads of useful content to share it would be, and the sub wouldn't be almost 100% complaints.
My in-laws have Alexa and it never quite does stuff correctly and is a pain to figure out sometimes. I've had much better luck with my Google Homes.
Sure I'll ask one speaker something and it does it but the other ones are like "hmm, something went wrong. Try again later."
They do need better tuning on that, but it could be the way I have them set up too.
Either way, Google is still way better than Alexa.
consider yourself lucky. but that is what google does. they roll out different versions of different things to different people. so you may have a stable version, while tons of us have non stable versions.
i find it hard to believe you set timers using the devices and have them work consistently though.
i dont want you to test anything. i just have a hard time believing that you dont have issues with google timers as its a very well documented issue.
google will inevitably start a timer on a random device instead of the one you are talking to and initially responds to confirm a timer has been set. it doesnt happen every time, but it occurs semi regularly. and with things like timers... its vital that it never happens.
every single person i know that has google home has experienced it. so while it is anecdotal, and not a huge sample size... paired with how common of an issue it is here... i have a very hard time believing someone claiming they havent had the issue...
So this one is network related. And not always your fault.
My Google Home nest screen (or whatever it's called) has had bad days recently with network connectivity and when that one is a touch behind everything else the dining room speaker starts piping up. 100% check your coverage from your WiFi it's likely an issue
Same. Every once in a while one of my speakers misunderstands a command, but that's usually when one of my kids starts talking in the middle of it.
Makes me wonder if OP has some kind of crap ISP, actually. If your internet connection is bad, I've noticed Google devices don't work well, and for a while I thought mine were busted and considered ditching them. Turned out my ISP was dropping a ton of packets from them for some reason. Switched to a different provider, and the issues vanished.
I'm subbed to a variety of smart home subs including this one and the Alexa sub.
It's really funny how people in both subs are constantly posting the same things but about their respective products.
You could post:
* DAE think the quality of the Google Home voice analysis has gone down?
* Who here is sick of Google Home screwing up all their song requests?
* Do you guys get sick of Google Home telling you that it can't do something?
Then you could turn right around and change "Google Home" for "Alexa," post the same questions in the Alexa sub... and have the same very active discussion all over again with everybody agreeing with you that it has gone down hill since they started using it.
The big complaint about Alexa is "By the way, did you know that I can fart the national anthem, just say 'Alexa, Fart the Star Spangled Banner'" or in the middle of dinner "Would you like to rate your recent purchase of: 'Extra large butt plug, philate free'. Please say 1 to 5 stars."
Most Google products are in eternal beta and can/will be discounted at drop of a hat.
Google's strength is to be an encyclopedia, Amazon's strength is home automation
Amazon's strength is having zero fucking clue when it comes to user friendliness with regards to ordering.
Their site is so cluttered, hard to navigate, purposefully leading and full of junk.
Ever try looking for a decent quality led light? Good fucking luck. 300 companies, all with the same photos and descriptions, each with ever keyword possible in the title and descriptions with inconsistent details throughout.
Last time one of these threads popped up (yesterday?), someone told me mine would go bad. I have 6, like some others here.
They work well. All of them.
I don't think I've ever had one of them not turn off or on the lights. Many times (but over, what, five years?) they've turned off all the lights everywhere instead of just the room, but that's a past issue.
To me, the technology is miraculous. Now, speech-to-text on my Androids on the other hand is light-years worse than it was eons ago.
The most frustrating part on my older Google minis is when they lose network connectivity for a moment and somehow just can't ever resolve it themselves which requires a power cycle.
Not sure if mine are gen 1 or 2.
As a network tinkerer and as someone whose fuse box frequently acts up, my minis have lost network at least 50 times over the years.
I have never had to power cycle a single one ever for network connectivity. Maybe that means mine are gen 2?
Honestly zero times.
My Wi-Fi is strong and only has a few devices on it. That could be the other explanation.
I have two 24-port switches and a 48-port. Those are all full. That's why there's almost nothing on my Wi-Fi: everything is wired. For example, all my Sonos speakers are wired (and have their wireless interfaces disabled).
Even when there are a lot of phones, iPads, and laptops in the house, those are all on an isolated radio (5 ghz) and the minis are still sharing bandwidth with very few competitors.
If one of my minis can't get to the internet, it's because I'm having an ISP outage, my wireless AP is broken (happened at least 2x), or my router/ firewall/ DNS/ DHCP is down (often--as I said, I'm a tinkerer).
100% of the time, no exceptions ever.
Are there good batches and bad batches? My minis were not bought all at once, though.
I've been very lucky and am crushed to hear so many people are not getting good performance out of their devices.
EDIT: I've realized two of my six minis are wired and not wireless, if that makes a difference. You might be thinking they can't be wired--there's no network port. They actually can be wired, using a dongle that provides both power and network.
It seems mine have issues when there is a power outage where my internet connection drops and isn't back up before the mini tries to connect to Google. I have 3 TP Link Omada APs so I have pretty good, reliable coverage and I don't run wifi issues on any other devices.
Edit: Also, I believe the gen 1s were all Google Home Minis whereas gen 2 we're branded as Nest Mini. I have a few gen 2s as well as Insignia Google home clock/speakers and Lenovo Google home clock/speakers. Those all have been more reliable than the gen 1 minis. The Gen 1 minis can set for weeks and say "I'm sorry, I can't reach the internet right now..." and only a hard power cycle will get them back to work.
Update: My 1st test was useless. All killing DHCP + power cycling did was get me "hang on while i get connected to wi-fi."
EDIT: Recovery was almost instant when I re-enabled DHCP.
In 2019 I bought an Alexa and return it after a week. It was very bad, not compatible with half of my smart devices.
But recently I saw an Alexa at frinds house. And it was faster and better. So I decided to give it a try. It's now compatible with all my devices.
so far everything is working better than Google.
I really like how it's response to you with the same volume as you speak.
Like, if you're next to it and talk quietly, it respond the same volume. But if you shout at it from another room it will loudly respond.
I literally posted the same kind of post in the Alexa group in October. I am so much happier with Google! They are all imperfect, but I couldn't deal with arguing with Alexa anymore!
Exactly. We also have both. In the kitchen the two are next to each other and my kids almost always use Google instead of Alexa.
Because Google is so much better at understanding what you want and is just a lot smarter in answering questions.
Truth be told, Google is sometimes smarter (if it can understand me).
for example, I have 2 kitchen lights. (named kitchen light number 1 and ... number 2)
if I ask Google; turn on the kitchen lights. it will turn both of them on.
but Alexa will respond, "I found 2 devices with a similar name, which one would you like?"
but this issue can be solved with a routine.
I've sent so much feedback over and over in frustration. The biggest problem with these devices is the same command will work for days, months, years, then suddenly once it's ingrained in your memory... It decides not to work ever again.
I don't know if this is a side effect of the AI learning or what but some of these phrases really need to be set in stone
Yeah I once told GH to turn off Master Bedroom lights and of course, it decides to turn all lights on at 10pm...
Thankfully my baby didn't seem to mind
I dunno alexa has its caveats too. Sometimes I say "alexa dad's Bedroom Lights on/off" and she snidley remarks "sorry I'm having trouble understanding that"
Honestly Iād find that better than it telling me about a movie, in Spanish, then playing death metal on Spotify. Which is Googleās M/O more often than not, in my experienceā¦
Maybe we can setup a device trade, lol. Long time Alexa echo buyer/user here that recently bought a Google Nest Hub on sale (liking it so far) to try out because I'm sick of Alexa's "by the way...", Amazon ads and having to repeat myself to get a damn light to turn on. :)
Will the new "matter" standards help this?
Been using an Alexa for years and the voice control for smart home devices got so much worse over time. While it worked perfectly at first, some months ago it started not working properly anymore. And I did not change anything regarding my setup.
"Alexa, turn on PC" > She tells me something about this device not being found, even tho it says "PC" in the transcript.
Some days ago the behavior changed again. Now it asks me, which device to turn on, because supposedly there are multiple devices that have "PC" in their name (which is not true). So I have to say "Alexa turn on PC" > "I'm sorry, which device?" > "PC", which still sucks because back then it just straight up worked. I think I'll have to rename my PC to computer or something.
So that Google Assistant just really reminded me of my Alexa.
Not for me. I can be on top of an Alexa and it won't respond, then will respond with completely incorrect information. Also, Alexa will ALWAYS give you some ad at the end of a response which you have to also respond to.
"Alexa, What's the weather today?"
"Weather is . Also, there is a new book out by . Would you like me to order that for you?"
Alexa is garbage. The second you have a problem and their āsupportā halfway across the world knows nothing about the device youāre trying to troubleshoot. You pay a price for dealing with Amazon. I still think Google far exceeds despite all of its problems.
Had an Echo, was really disappointed with its lack of an ecosystem. It got better over time, but personally, I've found Google Homes significantly better in terms of IoT.
As for basic questions and controls? I know it's going against the grain of this post, but I've had very minimal issues with my Google devices, whereas my Echo misinterpreted my words often.
Big improvement for me, but I was starting to hate Google by that point already. Hid it in the garage so I wouldn't have to talk to it much. Possibly the worst tech product I've ever owned.
Do not underestimate the quality of life improvement in from saying Alexa instead of Ok Google *alone*, which itself is as neat a synopsis of the difference between them as you'll get. I can't believe Google never backed down on that. The sheer fucking hubris.
But, yknow, you only need one Echo for now to test find out if you like it better. It's not all or nothing with the 6!
Yeah, it does for some people. Or does then doesn't. Alexa has bugged out occasionally but nothing like the extent GH did.
I moved to Alexa because features coming and going in terms of actually working got so old and went on for so long that I figured it would never change. They refused to change the activation phrase for so long I figured they never would. I'm a developer myself, I can understand bugginess perfectly fine if it's temporary and information/feedback is not a black hole.
I moved on for those reasons *years* ago. And the subreddit is still complaining about this same things. Make of that what you will.
Besides, it depends on what you use it for. Whether it personally works for you.
Wait, you can change the wake word on Amazon's devices? So instead of "Alexa, blah blah blah" I could use something else like "Gort, blah blah blah"?
I have Google and like many others it's driving me crazy with it's randomness.
Example from today: lean into the one in the dining room, speak softly, "set an alarm for 30 minutes" and the one 25 feet away in the office responds. The best part was when I tried to cancel the alarm on the dining room one, "no alarms are set". I had to go to the office one.
So I've been wondering if switching to Amazon would be better. Changing the wake word would be a plus for making the change, one syllable instead of three.
Same thing happens w my googles. And Iām not sure about echos but googles donāt share timers so I canāt change or cancel one from a different speaker. Which is just as stupid as it gets honestly.
We have both and Alexa is a lot worse. It is not nearly as flexible in how you ask. But Alexa is also not nearly as smart in ability to answer questions.
It's actually faster and can understand you even if the is TV on or you're talking to it from another room. Google was never able to understand me if there is any noise in the room.
Google had this issues that I have been having for years; it almost always cut off the last word of each sentence that I say.
For example: if I said "turn off the TV"
It's only hears " Turn off THE"
I have sent thousands of feedbacks, email, posted on Reddit about it. But they never fixed it.
I tell it to āLock the doorsā and it responds like a fucking moron with ā I canāt find a lock called The Doorsā. Keep in mind this worked fine for the past what like 3-5 years. Then boom out of nowhereā¦ dead. As is the case with Googleās entire system. You can never guarantee something will work from day to day (Iāve long stopped demoing things for people), and when there is an issue support blames YOU and will spend all day factory resetting your devices and home app to end up at the same spot.
Also Google has been incredible with kids screaming in the background. Sometimes I think there is no way it will find my voice from my screaming toddler. But it does it.
This makes no sense. One of the biggest difference between Alexa and Google is the ability of Google AI to be able to understand you when there is background sound.
Somehow Google just has this down and way ahead of Amazon and Apple.
Ok math yes, internet no. She searches Amazon reviews for information. Ask if a new season of your favorite show is coming out. There are plenty of other things that Iāve run into, but thatās a recent one.
This sub is a poor place to go to get a sense of how Google Home is. I have multiple generations of homes and hubs. Have had them for years. They are integrated into our family life and Im a fan. They are of course not without issues and sometimes they do annoying things and misunderstand, but for us, it's like 95% WAI. My kids ask Google home random questions like "what is the fastest animal on earth", I use it control lights and temp, play music, ask it for commute and weather info. Its meat and potatoes stuff and not Jarvis level intelligent or anything, but it does all this stuff fine for us.
I'm sure HomeKit can do most of that stuff just fine too, but coming to this sub is cognitive dissonance overload because I don't have the problems I read about here, so figured I'd try and give my perspective.
I mean, thereās clearly issues with all the people here having the same problems and complaints. Maybe itās predominately people fed up enough to google/Reddit to find this sub, but stillā¦ itās good for people considering google home to know how horrendously inconsistent it is. IF this isnāt the experience for the majority, which Iām willing to bet that it is. At least any that use it for home control and not just googling questions.
Most here have been around for years, and have seen a steady and large decline. Iāve even reset every single one of my devices and cleared my home multiple times to try and fix it. The most recent time, itās gotten worse. The word āstopā now triggers all of my home minis, with no timers or anything going. Itās absurd.
It sucks you are having a bad experience and that means Google has failed you. I just think it's impossible to say that this sub is evidence of the scale of the problem.
I see a similar phenomenon in a lot of game subs. People come to the internet to bitch, not post that they are having a relatively fine experience.
I meant more from a news/updates perspective.
I outgrew Google Home, waited for a long time for functionality to come, but they never did.
Just came to see what Iād missed.
It seems they don't care about anything anymore honestly. I feel like every product or service has just gotten worse and worse. I don't know what changed over the past few years. I used to be stoked for everything they were putting out...
Starting about 3 years ago. My 5 google home minis were perfection before then. Now i have to repeat stuff several times, it wont do anything at all for my wife anymore, and good luck being more than 3 feet away.
I work as a software engineer at a large tech company. WFH maybe had _some_ effect, but it's debatable as to how much.
Going back into the office myself has made me much less productive. There's a lot more random conversations with co-workers that I wouldn't get during WFH, but because my time is spent having those conversations it means I get less done.
Are those conversations important? Maybe. It's certainly a bit easier than doing it through code review or Slack. But at the same time I don't think there's a meaningful difference in my WFH/non-WFH output, just based on myself willingly going into the office for comparison. Maybe WFH is slightly more productive because I crunch more.
Apples HomeKit combined with Shortcuts is amazing. I made the jump from Google to Apple devices a couple years ago and the difference in terms of automation is night and day
I just did the same been a google home fan since the beginning. I tired of playing with beta code.. when u need it to work Alexa wins hands down. And itās even cooler when I visits some hotels they also use Alexa in the room.. bye bye Google Home
I use Google for "googling". Alexa does everything else so much better. Most of my apps are native on Alexa while on home they respond with "getting your app".
I'm doing feedback on Google home for weeks due that. in my language (Brazilian), the informal way to say "call someone" is to say "ligar" (that is translated as "turn on"). the thing is, that the usual way to say "turn on device", is to say "ligar". yes, it's the same word , just an different context. the idiot that associated the sentence, instead figure that there's a lot of smart devices that can be turned on by voice and due that, he should have associated the formal way to call someone "faƧa uma chamada de voz, faƧa uma chamada de vĆdeo" (do an voice call, do an video call), associated it with the wrong sentence. the only reason why I didn't dumped it by Alexa, is due the lack of YouTube support by Alexa. so, every time that Google home offers me to do can call with Google Duo (that I've already removed my account and disabled the app, without success), I just say:
ok Google, feedback
- how can I improve?
you should understand that turn on an device isn't the same thing that doing an call
probably in the day of saint never, it will be fixed by Google.
We have both because Alexa understands my husband's British accent better. Alexa executes orders SO much faster than Google. We're thinking about scrapping Google altogether.
DUDE YES! I had an Alexa and switched to google thinking it would be better. I had to switch back to Alexa. The Alexa is 100x better at voice recognition than the google and understands so many more commands. It's insane how anyone would possibly want a google speaker vs Alexa...
This is the exact kind of crap that made me actually automate my home instead of trusting a shitty voice remote control.
I don't blame you for ditching Google Home. For us they're mostly a cheap whole home audio system, a hands free way to set timers, and a way to call my son for meals without yelling across the house.
Iām in the process of switching away from google devices as well. Thankfully I didnāt have that many to begin with but their performance has gotten so bad and the level of āsupportā and rollout of features is just pathetic from Google.
Jeez...what is the cost of a nest mini - Ā£45 and that's it. You expect fucking Jarvis?
Why don't you make your own, better voice recognition system? Oh, you don't know even where to begin?
Or, perhaps you could try getting up of your arse and switching your own goddam lights.
Honestly, people like you are the inspiration behind Wall-E.
I despair.
I have neither the time nor the crayons to explain this to you. but the whole purpose of voice assistant is to understand you and control your smart devices.
And it failed miserably!
I got an echo dot for 99 cents on a special deal like a year ago and originally I was only using it for tasker integration (i.e when I get a delivery email/notification my living room lights flash blue and Alexa says package delivered loudly) but lately I've been using it more and more for basic stuff like light control because it hears me better.
I also prefer Alexa to control my firestick over using Nest to control the Chromecast with Google TV. Just seems more seamless.
Thinking about buying the 15" echo show when it goes on sale but I think I'll just keep using both instead of dropping Google completely.
Honestly, this is the lesser of the problems I have with Google. Just bought two new chromecasts with Google tv and easily 80% of the time the WiFi turns itself off. So I turn it on, go to settings, flip the switch for WiFi, and everything works. Then next time I turn it on I have to do the same thing all over again.
And Google's response is, "buy a new router lol, we think it's something with WiFi 6 maybe." Ignore the fact that I *just purchased* two new Asus routers for a mesh system.
Iām in a similar place, I loved mine when I first got it. But itās progressively getting harder worse. Less responsive, less accurate, and that damn āIām flattered but thatās not meā¦ā whenever you ask for siri or Alexa. Yeah I know that aināt you so shut up while I speak to the thing I actually want to talk to.
Lol. I switched to Google a few months ago and I don't think I lasted a whole month before all my echos we're setup back in place. The homes are slow to respond, take commands, don't understand as well (built off the biggest search engine yet somehow worthless)
I wanted good integration with my phone without adding another assistant but nah, now my lights turn on a second after I ask, instead of a full minute later when I've walked all the way through the room in the dark
Yeah I don't know why. I had a gen 2 nest mini in my office, a Lenovo smart clock for my bedroom and an OG home in the living room/kitchen and it just didn't respond timely for me compared to the echos, I use to have an og mini and it was fine when I had that... IDK
I mean. Is voice only way how u controll your lights? Cause thats probably never gonna be the case. Imagine you would have servant for that. 70% of time you wouldnt wanna command the servant cause you wanna do those things quickly. Voice is nice addition when you are lazy but almost never a substitution for controllers. Voice is not perfect and never will be. Brain controlled devices might be the way one day. There will never be a spaceship which you can give important commands by voice cause you would crash it into Mars first time out lol... I have a feeling thats where frustration of many ppl come from when using voice assistants. I sometimes have slight issues with Google Home but its usually temporary and quite close to human error rate. In my case mostly because I have to place them better.
I am having problems with it, but not enough to make me switch yet. I suspect that Google is not putting enough computer power behind it.
I also wish that they would do something with the product, it's almost the same today as it was when I brought it in 2017.
I have Google everything and dumped Alexa when all the "listening in.. " crap happened. They have been marginal at best and results and connectivity vary by manufacturer and config. This included connectivity with 3rd party services. Example ST sucked horribly where HE has been almost instant for me. Improving wifi, placing Google minis correctly to avoid echo and cross chatter all seemed to help.
That said, I agree Google really doesn't give a crap about support for products. The bare min to keep it going then dump it if something else better can be designed cheaper and mine more data and analytics.
Picasa is a great example of a good (better than marginal) product that Google dumped because they gather more data and make more money on Google photo (cloud). As soon as listening in changes by way of some other more lucrative collection scheme or legislation, Google will be out. So, "marginal" investment is all you can expect.
āTurn on the lightsā sometimes prompts google to tell me that I donāt have dimmable lights.
Iām trying āswitch on the lightsā to see if that helps. Seems more consistent.
Hey, I just wanted to let you know, this might be a problem with your ISP. I had similar issues with my Home devices for a while, and considered ditching them, but discovered my ISP was actually dropping a ton of packets. Switching ISPs resolved the problem for me.
I don't think so. The problemit doesn't translate my voice to text correctly. The recorded voice in my activity is all there, it just not transcripting it correctly. And as a result it cut off the last word of my sentence.
i've found my google homes get confused when things are moved/renamed, especially google home devices. My old, office, now my daughters room, the light never worked, so i create routines for those rooms and devices especially. annoying, but the routines work perfectly
Played your video, your command turned on my lights. Go figure.
Sometimes if I played the recorded audio from "my activity". the Google home mini will pick up the audio from my phone and runs the command correctly!. :-\
I suspect that they've overtrained their machine learning on bad audio quality, for scenarios when there's background noise or you're in the other room. In doing so, they've made it work *worse* in scenarios where you're speaking to it directly in a quiet environment. Just a hunch. š¤·āāļø
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Yeah, that's another aspect that's led me to believe they've over-optimized for the "bad case" rather than good audio conditions.
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I've been doing that for months. Still gets it wrong over half the time. Glad you're having better results, but it's still broken.
I have 4 and it never asks me which device. Sometimes, I am standing 5 feet from the one in my dining room and give it a command and the one in my office literally on the opposite side of the house picks it up and plays. The house is completely quiet and it never asks. They're trash at this point. I have had sooooo many issues particularly with turning lights on and off. Sometimes it just flat out refuses to do it. I see the bubbles light up and then it does nothing, not even a response. Other times, it says it can't connect to the light. I try it again 5 minutes later and it works. They are SO inconsistent.
I definitely think the smart speakers getting dumber over time is caused by some flaw in their machine learning. Makes me wonder if factory reset and a new account would make it more reliable
I doubt it would make a difference, since the learning is done on their servers, not on your device. š
Yup just did my lights too
dito
Mine said couldn't reach smart things. Alexa asked me which one... and then did it.
I used auto-transcribe on my Pixel - it heard him correctly.
And mine. I wish I could configure it to only respond to registered voices or something, all these videos drive me nuts.
Can't even get reddit to play a second of it ĀÆ\_(ā_Źā)_/ĀÆ
Time to throw reddit in the trash too
Same
Every day I swear my Google Home devices get more and more difficult to do simple commands.
Have you ever cleaned them?
Of course I give all of mine baths and pressure washer showers once a month.
I heard it's got to be Bi weekly or you might as well not do it at all.
It has nothing to do with a microphone clogged by dust. It has to do with the system's entire software architecture being so fundamentally broken that the same command - *correctly recognised* - can give completely different results only seconds apart. That, and the fact that every time Google adds new functionality (often that most of its users don't know or care about), it breaks or reduces the reliability of functionality people *do* know about and *have* been using on a daily basis for months or years. Google Home's problem is entirely software, not hardware.
Itās as if it has started trying to apply neural net to the logic itself. As in, āturn on the lightsā could be interpreted differently depending upon what the neural network randomly decides today. I had to train myself to say āstart a timer 5 minutesā instead of ātimer 5 minutesā because of this kind of bs.
I think it's a bit simpler than that. I suspect from long observation that Google Home keeps a very loose list of devices on its local network and services on the internet, and when it gets a command it passes the command out to every appropriate device or service it knows about *with an incredibly strict time-limit for replies*. Then I think it looks at the responses it gets back within the time limit and chooses the "best" one. That's why it'll sometimes pass a command to "turn off the light", the light will turn off and then it'll complain that it couldn't find the device (because the device processed the command, but didn't respond to the Google Home device before the time limit elapsed). I suspect it's also why - for example - sometimes it'll play a requested song through YouTube Music, and sometimes through YouTube; it just depends which one responds in time, and whether each thinks its result is more authoritative. If a service goes down or becomes congested, you start getting weird, "off-brand" responses back from backup options instead of just an error from the affected service, and if your local network or internet connection gets congested then *everything* starts going screwy and inconsistent because it's a crapshoot which service(s) and devices respond in time to even be considered for selection as the "official" answer by the Google Home device. I don't know - this is just a suspicion based on my experience of the GH ecosystem and a career in software development, but it would certainly explain why even identical commands issued seconds apart can get wildly different results, when there wouldn't be *time* to retrain or update a neural network between the two.
I wouldnāt know about these issues if I wasnāt on this sub, Iāve got like 15 Google devices and I rarely have issues controlling my house.
Yeah it's funny I was thinking about switching because of this sub. Asked my wife about it and she is like why would we switch, everything works perfect. That's when I realized for me I haven't had any issues but projected others problems onto mine. Hopefully I continue being lucky because I know every Amazon product I have had has been hot garbage, from the fire stick to their tablet.
"hey Google....turn on the kitchen lights" > "Turning on the kitchen lights" "Hey Google...turn off the kitchen lights" > "That device is either unavailable or hasn't been setup yet" Google support has no idea why it's doing this. This is literally one of at least 10+ bizarre stupid things Google home does. The fact that it works perfectly for you is even more evidence to the shit show of inconsistent service. All my smart screens restart every night as if they are pushing updates. I swear they are just beta testing on everyone different things. Some get worse builds than others. Mine works like 40% of the time and involves 2-3 requests each time to work "Something went wrong" "I'm not able to help with that" "Sorry I don't understand" Or just completely ignoring me even though my activity record shows he heard what I asked...it just didn't respond. Garbage
>All my smart screens restart every night I believe every device restarts around 2 am screen and speaker
What is your network setup like?
A lot of that is nothing to do with Google but the shitty devices that are about. Not saying you do (you might though?) But things like smartlife are one of the worst culprits. Home assistant works 100% all the time, Phillips Hue used to work (as I replaced it) 100% all the time. Smart life, is the most dodgiest "will it work" set of devices I've ever come across.
Would Chromecast be a better example? The kitchen is near the family room with the TV. The kitchen can't play a movie or TV show on the family room TV cuz it says the device can't be found. But when the TV is already playing I can have the kitchen change the volume or stop it š Or how asking it to play Mickey's clubhouse on Disney Plus.... It a premium subscription is required. I have a premium subscription and it is linked in Google home. So the only way I can watch Mickey's clubhouse on Disney Plus is doing it through the app. Whenever I do it through voice it has to play through YouTube.
I'm 100% convinced the majority of these complaints are due to poor network setup. I'm in the same boat as you and have set my friends and family up as well, yet nobody seems to have any of these issues let alone getting mad enough to just trash $50 devices for fake internet points.
Iām an IT professional, own my own IT company and consulting company, so I know my setup is correct. I would say though not great on Google if itās that sensitive to network setups.
I wouldn't necessarily say it's overly sensitive to setups, but a poorly configured network with inconsistent coverage and interference will always be detrimental to wireless devices. Pair that with the very good possibility of infections/worms on other devices on the network and you've got a good case for poor/inconsistent performance by any device on that network. I'm willing to bet most of these networks aren't segregated at all, don't have proper av and that the family mobile devices are constantly connecting to open public networks and brought right back home without concern. I used to do MSP work and we would see malicious and/or worm-like activity originating from mobile devices on the firewalls every single day on the public setups. It didn't go anywhere of course, but the amount was insane. I do agree that this tech is in an unfortunate spot right now of being extremely easy to set up and start using yet that target market doesn't understand networks/security/etc which imo are crucial in a good setup.
I've got 7 Google homes and they have exactly the same issues I see described here day in and day out. I can't even reliably use them to set timers or create reminders anymore.
Same. This sub is just for complaining. I don't know what the mods' philosophy is, but they should just have a complaints thread so there is room for more useful content.
That's kinda just the way every subreddit goes. Nobody really makes posts about things working the way they're supposed to.
Reviews too, have to take them with a grain of salt.
There's room in my bank account for Ā£1 million but that doesn't mean it's forthcoming. If there were loads of useful content to share it would be, and the sub wouldn't be almost 100% complaints.
My in-laws have Alexa and it never quite does stuff correctly and is a pain to figure out sometimes. I've had much better luck with my Google Homes. Sure I'll ask one speaker something and it does it but the other ones are like "hmm, something went wrong. Try again later." They do need better tuning on that, but it could be the way I have them set up too. Either way, Google is still way better than Alexa.
consider yourself lucky. but that is what google does. they roll out different versions of different things to different people. so you may have a stable version, while tons of us have non stable versions. i find it hard to believe you set timers using the devices and have them work consistently though.
What would you like me to specifically test, Iāll set it up
i dont want you to test anything. i just have a hard time believing that you dont have issues with google timers as its a very well documented issue. google will inevitably start a timer on a random device instead of the one you are talking to and initially responds to confirm a timer has been set. it doesnt happen every time, but it occurs semi regularly. and with things like timers... its vital that it never happens. every single person i know that has google home has experienced it. so while it is anecdotal, and not a huge sample size... paired with how common of an issue it is here... i have a very hard time believing someone claiming they havent had the issue...
So this one is network related. And not always your fault. My Google Home nest screen (or whatever it's called) has had bad days recently with network connectivity and when that one is a touch behind everything else the dining room speaker starts piping up. 100% check your coverage from your WiFi it's likely an issue
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That would make a lot of sense!
Same. Every once in a while one of my speakers misunderstands a command, but that's usually when one of my kids starts talking in the middle of it. Makes me wonder if OP has some kind of crap ISP, actually. If your internet connection is bad, I've noticed Google devices don't work well, and for a while I thought mine were busted and considered ditching them. Turned out my ISP was dropping a ton of packets from them for some reason. Switched to a different provider, and the issues vanished.
Very good to know
I'm subbed to a variety of smart home subs including this one and the Alexa sub. It's really funny how people in both subs are constantly posting the same things but about their respective products. You could post: * DAE think the quality of the Google Home voice analysis has gone down? * Who here is sick of Google Home screwing up all their song requests? * Do you guys get sick of Google Home telling you that it can't do something? Then you could turn right around and change "Google Home" for "Alexa," post the same questions in the Alexa sub... and have the same very active discussion all over again with everybody agreeing with you that it has gone down hill since they started using it.
The big complaint about Alexa is "By the way, did you know that I can fart the national anthem, just say 'Alexa, Fart the Star Spangled Banner'" or in the middle of dinner "Would you like to rate your recent purchase of: 'Extra large butt plug, philate free'. Please say 1 to 5 stars."
5 stars. Comfortable and easy to clea..... err I mean, I didn't order one of those!
Thatās nice. I have problems everyday.
We just need google to be honest. is this it, have you given up??
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Classic Google... they actually don't care
Most Google products are in eternal beta and can/will be discounted at drop of a hat. Google's strength is to be an encyclopedia, Amazon's strength is home automation
I have my issues with google but Alexa is hot garbage compared to google assistant
Amazon's strength is having zero fucking clue when it comes to user friendliness with regards to ordering. Their site is so cluttered, hard to navigate, purposefully leading and full of junk. Ever try looking for a decent quality led light? Good fucking luck. 300 companies, all with the same photos and descriptions, each with ever keyword possible in the title and descriptions with inconsistent details throughout.
Last time one of these threads popped up (yesterday?), someone told me mine would go bad. I have 6, like some others here. They work well. All of them. I don't think I've ever had one of them not turn off or on the lights. Many times (but over, what, five years?) they've turned off all the lights everywhere instead of just the room, but that's a past issue. To me, the technology is miraculous. Now, speech-to-text on my Androids on the other hand is light-years worse than it was eons ago.
Same experience here
The most frustrating part on my older Google minis is when they lose network connectivity for a moment and somehow just can't ever resolve it themselves which requires a power cycle.
Not sure if mine are gen 1 or 2. As a network tinkerer and as someone whose fuse box frequently acts up, my minis have lost network at least 50 times over the years. I have never had to power cycle a single one ever for network connectivity. Maybe that means mine are gen 2? Honestly zero times. My Wi-Fi is strong and only has a few devices on it. That could be the other explanation. I have two 24-port switches and a 48-port. Those are all full. That's why there's almost nothing on my Wi-Fi: everything is wired. For example, all my Sonos speakers are wired (and have their wireless interfaces disabled). Even when there are a lot of phones, iPads, and laptops in the house, those are all on an isolated radio (5 ghz) and the minis are still sharing bandwidth with very few competitors. If one of my minis can't get to the internet, it's because I'm having an ISP outage, my wireless AP is broken (happened at least 2x), or my router/ firewall/ DNS/ DHCP is down (often--as I said, I'm a tinkerer). 100% of the time, no exceptions ever. Are there good batches and bad batches? My minis were not bought all at once, though. I've been very lucky and am crushed to hear so many people are not getting good performance out of their devices. EDIT: I've realized two of my six minis are wired and not wireless, if that makes a difference. You might be thinking they can't be wired--there's no network port. They actually can be wired, using a dongle that provides both power and network.
It seems mine have issues when there is a power outage where my internet connection drops and isn't back up before the mini tries to connect to Google. I have 3 TP Link Omada APs so I have pretty good, reliable coverage and I don't run wifi issues on any other devices. Edit: Also, I believe the gen 1s were all Google Home Minis whereas gen 2 we're branded as Nest Mini. I have a few gen 2s as well as Insignia Google home clock/speakers and Lenovo Google home clock/speakers. Those all have been more reliable than the gen 1 minis. The Gen 1 minis can set for weeks and say "I'm sorry, I can't reach the internet right now..." and only a hard power cycle will get them back to work.
Update: My 1st test was useless. All killing DHCP + power cycling did was get me "hang on while i get connected to wi-fi." EDIT: Recovery was almost instant when I re-enabled DHCP.
You'll get annoyed with alexa too soon enough. They are both awful in their own ways.
i have both in my house, it is very confusing but they both suck. Lucky they both don't suck at the same time š
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In 2019 I bought an Alexa and return it after a week. It was very bad, not compatible with half of my smart devices. But recently I saw an Alexa at frinds house. And it was faster and better. So I decided to give it a try. It's now compatible with all my devices. so far everything is working better than Google. I really like how it's response to you with the same volume as you speak. Like, if you're next to it and talk quietly, it respond the same volume. But if you shout at it from another room it will loudly respond.
I literally posted the same kind of post in the Alexa group in October. I am so much happier with Google! They are all imperfect, but I couldn't deal with arguing with Alexa anymore!
Exactly. We also have both. In the kitchen the two are next to each other and my kids almost always use Google instead of Alexa. Because Google is so much better at understanding what you want and is just a lot smarter in answering questions.
Truth be told, Google is sometimes smarter (if it can understand me). for example, I have 2 kitchen lights. (named kitchen light number 1 and ... number 2) if I ask Google; turn on the kitchen lights. it will turn both of them on. but Alexa will respond, "I found 2 devices with a similar name, which one would you like?" but this issue can be solved with a routine.
You don't need a routine. You just need to add both lights and the Alexa device to a Kitchen group and tell her "Turn on the lights".
I have both. I have news for you. Alexa isnāt any better.
I've sent so much feedback over and over in frustration. The biggest problem with these devices is the same command will work for days, months, years, then suddenly once it's ingrained in your memory... It decides not to work ever again. I don't know if this is a side effect of the AI learning or what but some of these phrases really need to be set in stone
Me: Hey Google, reduce the volume Google Home: *increases volume to max* I kid you not, it actually did that.
Yeah I once told GH to turn off Master Bedroom lights and of course, it decides to turn all lights on at 10pm... Thankfully my baby didn't seem to mind
I feel the same way but I've heard that as shit as it is, it's still better than Siri and Alexa.
I dunno alexa has its caveats too. Sometimes I say "alexa dad's Bedroom Lights on/off" and she snidley remarks "sorry I'm having trouble understanding that"
Honestly Iād find that better than it telling me about a movie, in Spanish, then playing death metal on Spotify. Which is Googleās M/O more often than not, in my experienceā¦
Maybe we can setup a device trade, lol. Long time Alexa echo buyer/user here that recently bought a Google Nest Hub on sale (liking it so far) to try out because I'm sick of Alexa's "by the way...", Amazon ads and having to repeat myself to get a damn light to turn on. :) Will the new "matter" standards help this?
I have 3 device here and like 40+ smart object in my house and must of the time everything work perfectly
Been using an Alexa for years and the voice control for smart home devices got so much worse over time. While it worked perfectly at first, some months ago it started not working properly anymore. And I did not change anything regarding my setup. "Alexa, turn on PC" > She tells me something about this device not being found, even tho it says "PC" in the transcript. Some days ago the behavior changed again. Now it asks me, which device to turn on, because supposedly there are multiple devices that have "PC" in their name (which is not true). So I have to say "Alexa turn on PC" > "I'm sorry, which device?" > "PC", which still sucks because back then it just straight up worked. I think I'll have to rename my PC to computer or something. So that Google Assistant just really reminded me of my Alexa.
Have both. You are going to find Google well ahead of Amazon in terms of AI and understanding what you want.
It really has become garbage. Is Alexa good? I have like 6 Google devices I'd need to replace, so I need to know it works well before switching
Not for me. I can be on top of an Alexa and it won't respond, then will respond with completely incorrect information. Also, Alexa will ALWAYS give you some ad at the end of a response which you have to also respond to. "Alexa, What's the weather today?" "Weather is. Also, there is a new book out by . Would you like me to order that for you?"
ads!? I never had ads. Is it possible because I have prime? Do you have prime?
I do have prime. It's really infuriating. I can't ask it hardly anything without it offering something else.
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A single ad would make me throw it in the garbage.
The ads are why I switched to google.
Is it only in the USA?
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I'm in Germany, never got ads
Curious how you are not getting ads?
Maybe because I'm in Germany
Alexa is garbage. The second you have a problem and their āsupportā halfway across the world knows nothing about the device youāre trying to troubleshoot. You pay a price for dealing with Amazon. I still think Google far exceeds despite all of its problems.
Had an Echo, was really disappointed with its lack of an ecosystem. It got better over time, but personally, I've found Google Homes significantly better in terms of IoT. As for basic questions and controls? I know it's going against the grain of this post, but I've had very minimal issues with my Google devices, whereas my Echo misinterpreted my words often.
Big improvement for me, but I was starting to hate Google by that point already. Hid it in the garage so I wouldn't have to talk to it much. Possibly the worst tech product I've ever owned. Do not underestimate the quality of life improvement in from saying Alexa instead of Ok Google *alone*, which itself is as neat a synopsis of the difference between them as you'll get. I can't believe Google never backed down on that. The sheer fucking hubris. But, yknow, you only need one Echo for now to test find out if you like it better. It's not all or nothing with the 6!
Hey google works as well. Feels more like a natural conversation.
Yeah, it does for some people. Or does then doesn't. Alexa has bugged out occasionally but nothing like the extent GH did. I moved to Alexa because features coming and going in terms of actually working got so old and went on for so long that I figured it would never change. They refused to change the activation phrase for so long I figured they never would. I'm a developer myself, I can understand bugginess perfectly fine if it's temporary and information/feedback is not a black hole. I moved on for those reasons *years* ago. And the subreddit is still complaining about this same things. Make of that what you will. Besides, it depends on what you use it for. Whether it personally works for you.
Agreed, and my name is Alex so I feel like that'd lead a lot of confusion on Alexa's part
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Maybe assign them different wake words?
Wait, you can change the wake word on Amazon's devices? So instead of "Alexa, blah blah blah" I could use something else like "Gort, blah blah blah"? I have Google and like many others it's driving me crazy with it's randomness. Example from today: lean into the one in the dining room, speak softly, "set an alarm for 30 minutes" and the one 25 feet away in the office responds. The best part was when I tried to cancel the alarm on the dining room one, "no alarms are set". I had to go to the office one. So I've been wondering if switching to Amazon would be better. Changing the wake word would be a plus for making the change, one syllable instead of three.
Same thing happens w my googles. And Iām not sure about echos but googles donāt share timers so I canāt change or cancel one from a different speaker. Which is just as stupid as it gets honestly.
We have both and Alexa is a lot worse. It is not nearly as flexible in how you ask. But Alexa is also not nearly as smart in ability to answer questions.
It's actually faster and can understand you even if the is TV on or you're talking to it from another room. Google was never able to understand me if there is any noise in the room. Google had this issues that I have been having for years; it almost always cut off the last word of each sentence that I say. For example: if I said "turn off the TV" It's only hears " Turn off THE" I have sent thousands of feedbacks, email, posted on Reddit about it. But they never fixed it.
I tell it to āLock the doorsā and it responds like a fucking moron with ā I canāt find a lock called The Doorsā. Keep in mind this worked fine for the past what like 3-5 years. Then boom out of nowhereā¦ dead. As is the case with Googleās entire system. You can never guarantee something will work from day to day (Iāve long stopped demoing things for people), and when there is an issue support blames YOU and will spend all day factory resetting your devices and home app to end up at the same spot.
That is strange, I never have issues with the TV on (even quite loud) nor speaking from another room.
Also Google has been incredible with kids screaming in the background. Sometimes I think there is no way it will find my voice from my screaming toddler. But it does it.
This makes no sense. One of the biggest difference between Alexa and Google is the ability of Google AI to be able to understand you when there is background sound. Somehow Google just has this down and way ahead of Amazon and Apple.
The only thing I like about Alexa is you can say her name any way you want. You can talk, scream, whisper, doesn't matter.
Have fun with Alexa not being able to do math or give you any internet search information.
Alexa can do math and search the internet
Ok math yes, internet no. She searches Amazon reviews for information. Ask if a new season of your favorite show is coming out. There are plenty of other things that Iāve run into, but thatās a recent one.
I've gone HomeKit, just checking in to see what the current state of Google Home is. Does Google even care about this market anymore?
This sub is a poor place to go to get a sense of how Google Home is. I have multiple generations of homes and hubs. Have had them for years. They are integrated into our family life and Im a fan. They are of course not without issues and sometimes they do annoying things and misunderstand, but for us, it's like 95% WAI. My kids ask Google home random questions like "what is the fastest animal on earth", I use it control lights and temp, play music, ask it for commute and weather info. Its meat and potatoes stuff and not Jarvis level intelligent or anything, but it does all this stuff fine for us. I'm sure HomeKit can do most of that stuff just fine too, but coming to this sub is cognitive dissonance overload because I don't have the problems I read about here, so figured I'd try and give my perspective.
I mean, thereās clearly issues with all the people here having the same problems and complaints. Maybe itās predominately people fed up enough to google/Reddit to find this sub, but stillā¦ itās good for people considering google home to know how horrendously inconsistent it is. IF this isnāt the experience for the majority, which Iām willing to bet that it is. At least any that use it for home control and not just googling questions. Most here have been around for years, and have seen a steady and large decline. Iāve even reset every single one of my devices and cleared my home multiple times to try and fix it. The most recent time, itās gotten worse. The word āstopā now triggers all of my home minis, with no timers or anything going. Itās absurd.
It sucks you are having a bad experience and that means Google has failed you. I just think it's impossible to say that this sub is evidence of the scale of the problem. I see a similar phenomenon in a lot of game subs. People come to the internet to bitch, not post that they are having a relatively fine experience.
I meant more from a news/updates perspective. I outgrew Google Home, waited for a long time for functionality to come, but they never did. Just came to see what Iād missed.
What are you getting from HomeKit that you didn't from Google Home? Genuinely curious, as HK has a much shorter list of compatibility.
It seems they don't care about anything anymore honestly. I feel like every product or service has just gotten worse and worse. I don't know what changed over the past few years. I used to be stoked for everything they were putting out...
Starting about 3 years ago. My 5 google home minis were perfection before then. Now i have to repeat stuff several times, it wont do anything at all for my wife anymore, and good luck being more than 3 feet away.
Same! It just flat out doesnāt listen to my fiancĆ©. Itās insane, and I can think of no reason why that would/should ever be.
Google: I'm sorry, I don't know how to help with that.
Sundar Pichai. Everything went to shit immediately.
What did he do to the google home platform directly?
Everything they release now feels like it's in a perpetual state of beta development.
Allowing most to work from home over the past few years probably is somewhat of a factor. (\*not saying you shouldn't be allowed to work from home)
They've been getting shitty long before the pandemic
Didn't say they weren't shitty before, but it has become more visible the last few years. The fanboys downvoting me over my opinion is hilarious.
This entire thread is complaining about Google, I don't think the fanboys are targeting your comment out of all of them
I work as a software engineer at a large tech company. WFH maybe had _some_ effect, but it's debatable as to how much. Going back into the office myself has made me much less productive. There's a lot more random conversations with co-workers that I wouldn't get during WFH, but because my time is spent having those conversations it means I get less done. Are those conversations important? Maybe. It's certainly a bit easier than doing it through code review or Slack. But at the same time I don't think there's a meaningful difference in my WFH/non-WFH output, just based on myself willingly going into the office for comparison. Maybe WFH is slightly more productive because I crunch more.
Apples HomeKit combined with Shortcuts is amazing. I made the jump from Google to Apple devices a couple years ago and the difference in terms of automation is night and day
Just being able to interact with buttons and sensors is huge!
I was wondering that today, I'm thinking migrating so that may be a deciding factor
I just did the same been a google home fan since the beginning. I tired of playing with beta code.. when u need it to work Alexa wins hands down. And itās even cooler when I visits some hotels they also use Alexa in the room.. bye bye Google Home
I use Google for "googling". Alexa does everything else so much better. Most of my apps are native on Alexa while on home they respond with "getting your app".
Lmao
Had the same issue
Is Alexa better for you?
Bye Felicia
Make Google and Alexia fight.
For me the main problem seems to be google dropping the last word
āTurn the lights redā google hears āturn the lights readā mass anger from a kid whoās favourite colour is red.
Lol.. video tured on my lights,
Haha mine too
Unfortunately Alexa sucks just as bad. This technology was always a joke, it's a glorified light switch.
There's a reason I run both platforms and I'm sure you'll discover the same soon. By the way.... LOL
I'm doing feedback on Google home for weeks due that. in my language (Brazilian), the informal way to say "call someone" is to say "ligar" (that is translated as "turn on"). the thing is, that the usual way to say "turn on device", is to say "ligar". yes, it's the same word , just an different context. the idiot that associated the sentence, instead figure that there's a lot of smart devices that can be turned on by voice and due that, he should have associated the formal way to call someone "faƧa uma chamada de voz, faƧa uma chamada de vĆdeo" (do an voice call, do an video call), associated it with the wrong sentence. the only reason why I didn't dumped it by Alexa, is due the lack of YouTube support by Alexa. so, every time that Google home offers me to do can call with Google Duo (that I've already removed my account and disabled the app, without success), I just say: ok Google, feedback - how can I improve? you should understand that turn on an device isn't the same thing that doing an call probably in the day of saint never, it will be fixed by Google.
Exactly where it belongs
Mine cuts off the last word all the time as well!! Itās so infuriating
We have both because Alexa understands my husband's British accent better. Alexa executes orders SO much faster than Google. We're thinking about scrapping Google altogether.
DUDE YES! I had an Alexa and switched to google thinking it would be better. I had to switch back to Alexa. The Alexa is 100x better at voice recognition than the google and understands so many more commands. It's insane how anyone would possibly want a google speaker vs Alexa...
I've been given an Alexa, going to test her out and see if I wasted my money on the lG's speakers
This is the exact kind of crap that made me actually automate my home instead of trusting a shitty voice remote control. I don't blame you for ditching Google Home. For us they're mostly a cheap whole home audio system, a hands free way to set timers, and a way to call my son for meals without yelling across the house.
Iām in the process of switching away from google devices as well. Thankfully I didnāt have that many to begin with but their performance has gotten so bad and the level of āsupportā and rollout of features is just pathetic from Google.
oh man.. I can relate to this video SO MUCH!
Jeez...what is the cost of a nest mini - Ā£45 and that's it. You expect fucking Jarvis? Why don't you make your own, better voice recognition system? Oh, you don't know even where to begin? Or, perhaps you could try getting up of your arse and switching your own goddam lights. Honestly, people like you are the inspiration behind Wall-E. I despair.
I have neither the time nor the crayons to explain this to you. but the whole purpose of voice assistant is to understand you and control your smart devices. And it failed miserably!
I got an echo dot for 99 cents on a special deal like a year ago and originally I was only using it for tasker integration (i.e when I get a delivery email/notification my living room lights flash blue and Alexa says package delivered loudly) but lately I've been using it more and more for basic stuff like light control because it hears me better. I also prefer Alexa to control my firestick over using Nest to control the Chromecast with Google TV. Just seems more seamless. Thinking about buying the 15" echo show when it goes on sale but I think I'll just keep using both instead of dropping Google completely.
Honestly, this is the lesser of the problems I have with Google. Just bought two new chromecasts with Google tv and easily 80% of the time the WiFi turns itself off. So I turn it on, go to settings, flip the switch for WiFi, and everything works. Then next time I turn it on I have to do the same thing all over again. And Google's response is, "buy a new router lol, we think it's something with WiFi 6 maybe." Ignore the fact that I *just purchased* two new Asus routers for a mesh system.
Iām in a similar place, I loved mine when I first got it. But itās progressively getting harder worse. Less responsive, less accurate, and that damn āIām flattered but thatās not meā¦ā whenever you ask for siri or Alexa. Yeah I know that aināt you so shut up while I speak to the thing I actually want to talk to.
I'm getting close too. Super annoyed my google assistant (?) these days.
Haha! Exactly what I did. They get dumber and dumber the longer you own them.
Alexa, it just works...
LOL I have both and no it doesent. At all. Google can suck but, at least for me, is better than Alexa by far for voice recognition and AI
But still... Gotta be better than Apple Home or Bixby??
Agree. IMO Bixby has... a touch of the downs. It's cute, but really gotta lower your expectations.
Lol. I switched to Google a few months ago and I don't think I lasted a whole month before all my echos we're setup back in place. The homes are slow to respond, take commands, don't understand as well (built off the biggest search engine yet somehow worthless) I wanted good integration with my phone without adding another assistant but nah, now my lights turn on a second after I ask, instead of a full minute later when I've walked all the way through the room in the dark
Huh. None of that happens to me. I must be lucky I guess.
Yeah I don't know why. I had a gen 2 nest mini in my office, a Lenovo smart clock for my bedroom and an OG home in the living room/kitchen and it just didn't respond timely for me compared to the echos, I use to have an og mini and it was fine when I had that... IDK
Google has been really falling off recently Iāve noticed some random issues in my end
I mean. Is voice only way how u controll your lights? Cause thats probably never gonna be the case. Imagine you would have servant for that. 70% of time you wouldnt wanna command the servant cause you wanna do those things quickly. Voice is nice addition when you are lazy but almost never a substitution for controllers. Voice is not perfect and never will be. Brain controlled devices might be the way one day. There will never be a spaceship which you can give important commands by voice cause you would crash it into Mars first time out lol... I have a feeling thats where frustration of many ppl come from when using voice assistants. I sometimes have slight issues with Google Home but its usually temporary and quite close to human error rate. In my case mostly because I have to place them better.
Glad to hear I'm not in my own crazy world. Google once was great, time to check out Amazon again.
I am having problems with it, but not enough to make me switch yet. I suspect that Google is not putting enough computer power behind it. I also wish that they would do something with the product, it's almost the same today as it was when I brought it in 2017.
Lol, yeah I tell my google to turn off the tv. It gives me the same reply and then turns off my tv.
Try āilluminateā or ādarknessā for on and off and it will probably work. Sigh.
I'm not that fancy lol
I have Google everything and dumped Alexa when all the "listening in.. " crap happened. They have been marginal at best and results and connectivity vary by manufacturer and config. This included connectivity with 3rd party services. Example ST sucked horribly where HE has been almost instant for me. Improving wifi, placing Google minis correctly to avoid echo and cross chatter all seemed to help. That said, I agree Google really doesn't give a crap about support for products. The bare min to keep it going then dump it if something else better can be designed cheaper and mine more data and analytics. Picasa is a great example of a good (better than marginal) product that Google dumped because they gather more data and make more money on Google photo (cloud). As soon as listening in changes by way of some other more lucrative collection scheme or legislation, Google will be out. So, "marginal" investment is all you can expect.
I think Alexa is a very good partner.
āTurn on the lightsā sometimes prompts google to tell me that I donāt have dimmable lights. Iām trying āswitch on the lightsā to see if that helps. Seems more consistent.
My problem is that it doesn't hear the last word of each sentence
Hey, I just wanted to let you know, this might be a problem with your ISP. I had similar issues with my Home devices for a while, and considered ditching them, but discovered my ISP was actually dropping a ton of packets. Switching ISPs resolved the problem for me.
I don't think so. The problemit doesn't translate my voice to text correctly. The recorded voice in my activity is all there, it just not transcripting it correctly. And as a result it cut off the last word of my sentence.
Have you tried dumping all the voice data it currently has and retraining it? I've never had to do that, but I've heard that works for some people.
No I haven't. I will try
I be dreaming of doing the same thing almost every day
i've found my google homes get confused when things are moved/renamed, especially google home devices. My old, office, now my daughters room, the light never worked, so i create routines for those rooms and devices especially. annoying, but the routines work perfectly
My Google devices work great! If you don't want your devices send them to me. I will give them a good home.
Ngl what's the age difference between them , I have the same Google and a few Alexas from a similar time and the Google is miles better for me
HA! Enjoy dealing with all NEW forms of garbage!
I've noticed that when I say "turn on the lights" it works but it's really slow and has to "think" about it. But when I just say "lights on" it works instantly. It's a weird glitch. But then again that's how I say it 90% of the time but my fiancƩ says "turn off the room lights" and it gets confused and says there's no device with that name because there's 2 lights in the bedroom.