- Users are reporting multiple issues with Google smart home gadgets
- Commands aren’t working or being responded to slowly
- Most Google Home and Nest devices haven’t had updates for years
Have you checked in on your Google Home devices lately? It seems that Google Home and Google Nest gadgets are gradually becoming less reliable and more buggy, and many users are venting their frustrations at Google apparently abandoning the ecosystem.
A lengthy Reddit thread details a long list of problems, as highlighted by an article at Android Authority – an article which itself has dozens of comments bemoaning how unreliable Google smart home devices have become.
The issues listed include commands not working, automations and routines breaking, audio and video streams being unavailable, and devices going offline, not talking to each other, or being very slow to respond – it’s not a pretty picture.
One user’s lament that “I can only get it to work without some kind of error 25% of time these days” is typical, and many of the people logging complaints say they’re planning to switch to different products in the absence of any response from Google.
Where are the new devices?
There aren’t many signs of life from the Google Home and Google Nest ecosystem at the moment. The Nest Protect smoke alarm was discontinued in March, and we’ve not had a new Nest security camera since 2021. For the latest Nest smart speaker or smart display launch you have to go back further, to 2020.
We did get a new Nest Thermostat last August, but it was only made available in the US, and older models are no longer sold in Europe. Add in the increasing number of bugs being reported, and it’s understandable that users are upset.
Google does have a track record of getting interested in something and then abandoning it, from Chromecast devices to Google Stadia – which is obviously going to put people off from investing their time and money into whatever Google offers in the future.
Google’s latest favorite toy is of course Gemini AI, and it’s possible that we’ll see new smart home devices with Gemini on board in the future. However, given how little attention Google has recently paid to the hardware it’s already got in this category, there’d be no guarantee any new gadgets would be supported in the long term.
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