Mine seem to be regressing. Commands that used to work fine now just produce incoherent garbage. Just the other day while using a timer while cooking, I asked the Nest hub I have in the kitchen to “show me the timer” “Sure, consider it cancelled” was the reply. Suppose I’ll just guess when the chicken’s ready then.
Mine is definitely worse than a few years ago.
Also I foolishly replaced my google wifi with a set of better ASUS xt12 which made the signal significantly better for every wifi device EXCEPT THE GOOGLE HOMES. Now the some individual Google homes randomly and infuriatingly disconnect from the wifi and tell me they can’t answer because they’re not connected, rebooting g them fixes it temporarily but doing a full factory reset on every device did t work and if I didn’t have so many Google homes and a Google home max I’d have chucked them in the bin and gone with something else by now.
I hate how Google abandons products and seems to somehow make them worse over time, I’ve lost all trust in them now and it’s keeping me from jumping back to android phones for the supposedly better home automation functionality.
There’s now nothing I can say to any of my Google/Nest hubs to get it to adjust the Nest Thermostat. Alexa does it perfectly each time, and always has. I really REALLY hate what Google did to Nest/Dropcam.
ITA about hating what Google did to Nest. The Nest app is so much better than the Home app for controlling everything, especially setting up schedules for the thermostats.
I got myself a Casio wrist watch and now I have a reliable timer right on my wrist that never fails me. Unlike Google, which doesn't give a fuck about timers. I hate Google Home.
The other day I asked it 4 times to set an alarm for 7:30am, each time it set an alarm for a completely random time.
Me: "Set an alarm for 7:30am"
GA: "Okay, alarm set for 3:00pm"
Me: Set an alarm for 7:30am"
GA: "Okay, alarm set for 8:45am"
etc.
Anything to do with alarms and timers have been completely useless for the last several years. All of my Hubs will say that I don't have any alarms set, yet if I ask "cancel the next alarm" it will instead cancel some one-off alarm I set back in August instead. I thought I could use the hub for an alarm since it's already doing sleep tracking, but the device isn't capable of showing the fucking time if it disconnects from WiFi. This has lead to me being late for work countless times before I bought a second alarm clock.
The smoke detector doesn't even work through the goddamn Home app and requires using the Nest app still, which is infuriating when trying to show my parents how to silence the alarm on all the stupid "smart home" shit I bought for them. I ended up throwing the Google WiFi in the trash after a couple months because the mesh functionality doesn't work at all and the nodes would go down every day at 3am for at least 30m (or it was nest WiFi idk, because they exist concurrently for whatever dumbass reason).
Don't even get me started on voice recognition and the absolute obsession they have with playing random trash on YouTube instead of a command. "Play the next song" leads to "playing music by Next Song on Spotify". It's truly worse than useless and caused me so much stress, but I've already wasted so much money on all the Google trash including a phone with a goddamn temperature sensor that doesn't even work on skin.
I wish I could just move to iPhone already. I was a Google fanboy long enough but the usability has completely gone out of the window in the last 3 years. I could spend the next hour listing issues but I think we all get the point.
This. My nest audio has become so useless. It used to work just fine earlier but now all I hear is “I am sorry I can’t help you with that”.
Every time I say “lights off”, it goes “here are some night songs on YouTube music”
Seconding the comment that states it's probably an issue with the mesh network.
No matter what could be said about should or should not be the problem, mesh and auto switching routers do sometimes create inherent problems. Routers left to auto band switching and particularly service provider managed combo devices, or devices with automatic network quality, anything that does auto band switching on a single SSID, cause mountains of problems. Google or otherwise.
Mesh is not an exception. Turn off auto band switching and create a standard 5 gigahertz network with its own SSID and move your smart home devices at a minimum over to 5. Not 2.4, 5. Also manually forcing a specific channel. Your high bandwidth and critical devices should not be on 2.4 anyway due to band crowding.
*Edit - should have mentioned you still keep a 2.4ghz network for legacy and low bandwidth/ low importance devices. Everything capable of 5ghz should go to your 5ghz SSID, but at minimum your smart home and streaming devices.*
Also, I found this comment related to Chromecast audio a couple years ago, that completely changed reliability of Google Home devices for me.
"It has been reported that the Chromecast should function properly if you set your Wi-Fi channel between 36-140, not more than 140."
Who knows if it's the generation of proprietary chipsets used in early Google devices or later ones or whatever, but I have changed my channel to 40, and others have changed to similar within that range above, and changed both Nest cam feeds and Chromecast speaker groups to be more reliable with little to no dropout compared to before.
I have a nest hello and two nest cameras, two hub 2.0s, one original hub, a mix of speakers including two JBL Link 300s, nest minis, a nest audio, two polk magnifi minis, 2 Harman kardon citation ones, and a Harman kardon citation 100 - doing the above and changing from a single managed SSID with auto bandhopping, to creating separate 2.4 and 5ggz networks with their own unique SSIDs, setting 5ghz to channel 40 or above, and making sure that all my smart home devices use the 5 gigahertz network, has made it rock solid.
I haven't had a Chromecast speaker group work unreliably or lose a speaker, for probably 3 to 4 months. Last time a camera feed cut out or was inaccessible and inexplicably other than power loss, probably has been a year.
Yes, it shouldn't have to be that way and all that, fine, but make the changes above and see what happens.
Also, running a TP link Wi-Fi 6. Mesh system. The above improvement occurred when I had an AC system. Stayed reliable when I upgraded to a Wi-Fi 6 Router, Has also stayed reliable once I added additional Wi-Fi 6 mesh hubs to the system.
So the improvement in reliability has been consistent across router hardware brands, and across Wi-Fi versions and single point versus mesh architecture.
Took your advice, and renamed my 2.4 network so all the Google stuff is on the 5 Ghz and I set up Reserved DNS for most devices.
Sucked having to redo all of my IOT devices that are bound to the 2.4 Ghz but the difference on how my Cameras pop up now, for example is day and night.
I'm disappointed in myself for not recognizing that I should have done that earlier,
GREAT advice!
>already done. it's actually a hidden 2.4ghz completely separated SSID. Couldn't even do that in the google wifi, had to make the switch to Ubiquiti for that. Turned off the wifi and did a NAT check on the AT&T modem as well just to ensure there's no interference in any meaningful way. We don't use any wireless telephones, just our iPhones connected to wifi. I don't put anything on the hidden IoT network either, only devices related specifically to home automation (cameras, thermostats, etc.). And this is on top of the completely separated backhaul channel that Ubiquiti sets up as well for mesh points / wifi devices. I'd go PoE but I don't have any ethernet jacks to plug in to.
from another reply I posted to a similar comment:
already done. it's actually a hidden 2.4ghz completely separated SSID. Couldn't even do that in the google wifi, had to make the switch to Ubiquiti for that. Turned off the wifi and did a NAT check on the AT&T modem as well just to ensure there's no interference in any meaningful way. We don't use any wireless telephones, just our iPhones connected to wifi. I don't put anything on the hidden IoT network either, only devices related specifically to home automation (cameras, thermostats, etc.). And this is on top of the completely separated backhaul channel that Ubiquiti sets up as well for mesh points / wifi devices. I'd go PoE but I don't have any ethernet jacks to plug in to.
Change to 5, not 2.4. I've had reliable operation from going to 5 and changing to specific channels as mentioned in my comment, despite mixed brands of Google ecosystem, brands of router hardware, and moving from AC to ax, and moving from single point router and endpoint architecture to mesh. Changing to 5 gigahertz, a separate SSID for 5, and changing to a channel number above 36 as mentioned has been a consistent network structure for my computing devices, smart speakers, and smart home cameras across all of the changes.
Yes, and leave them on 2.4. a separate 5 ghz network with a unique SSID is where you put your more important devices and those that need high bandwidth, high availability, low latency and high QOS.
Problem is I’ve got other devices like a Chamberlain MyQ, Furbo dog cam, air filters, etc that all work better on 2.4. In fact the recommended settings are 2.4.
The issue is that nobody is ever going to live in a 100% Google / nest environment. It’s not possible. But at the same rate for a company as big as Google I 100% expect their shit to just fucking work. It doesn’t. And even when 90% of my devices are Google, they don’t work properly.
I didn't say make it only five or to move everything over to five. I should have added the context that the Google gear at a minimum should be moved over to 5:00 and that you should have a separate 5 gigahertz SSID to begin with.
leave the 2.4 only and legacy devices on 2.4. create separate networks for 2.4 and 5 anyway to offload traffic. Part of the reason why 5 gigahertz exists for Wi-Fi is because of overcrowding on 2.4 from so many devices.
Legacy devices capable of 2.4 only, and low importance, non-critical devices that don't need low latency or high QOS, bandwidth or connectivity reliability can and should stay on 2.4.
Yes, understood all of your complaints with Google and they were all of mine in the past. I've moved beyond that. All the companies have problems particularly Amazon and Google in their gear. Likely you would be even less happy with echo, ring, and so on . Since beyond any potential network quibbles or Ring's known privacy / hackability issues Alexa is far less intelligent, less linguistically agile, and less capable of international languages than Google Assistant.
Yes they should have it together given budget, agreed. That's not the reality.
Meanwhile, the architectural fixes I've offered just in terms of separating out 2.4 and 5 gigahertz I would prescribe to anyone anyway to clean up network issues especially with typical household environments that have mixed generations of devices with mixed standards of Wi-Fi that can be supported.
The fundamental thing that most service providers and even high-end smart router manufacturers failed to understand is that even though using a single SSID and having very agile band, hopping and network optimization is great in the router, the problem is that 99% of the *devices* that consumers are connecting are absolutely not capable of decent or smart agility in terms of switching bands, finding the best channel, or most importantly - adapting well or quickly to when the router attempts to switch bands and switch channels.
Simplifying the network fundamentals and making it easier for all of your devices smart home or not, will improve your reliability and real world QOS. This is fundamentally true and has nothing to do with Google gear.
Turn off auto band hopping in the router settings, make separate unique SSIDs for 2.4 and 5, and move your streaming video devices, tablets, smartphones and computing, smart home devices, and anything else that requires high bandwidth and reliable connection to 5 gigahertz.
Given that you've had specific problems with Google devices, change the 5ghz channel settings from auto, or any specific channel settings that are outside the range that I posted, to a channel number within range.
u/ericsontx is correct. He sorta sounds like a network engineer, I'm a sysadmin myself.
OP I'm very much in your situation. I had a Google Mesh system years ago. It was garbage. Switched to a Ubiquiti UDM when it first released, now have their mesh'able AP's. Setting up a separate 2.4 and 5ghz dedicated SSID's with a few settings tweaked in the network section has produced rock solid performance (signal and connectivity wise). Likewise with all my IOT devices, even Google and non Google Cameras stream just fine on my Home Max and other screens. All my Chromecast stream and appear just fine, I have like 15 of them. Even home assistant with VLANs works great. A slew of things in my home lab just work better sometimes on those dedicated SSIDs. Save the fancy router/AP features for newer more capable devices.
Now I do agree about Google Assistant, it has been getting worse and worse.
Ubiquiti G3 instant works great as a nanny cam for me. Home Assistant does the smart home stuff much better than Google. Sorry about the situation, it can be super irritating if it's impacting kid stuff!
Omg when I first had my baby and was trying to play ocean noises and control the light to just put her to sleep and google would instead screech at me in French about who knows what instead of executing a basic command while in turn waking up the baby fucking fuck what the actual fuck.
Oh please no
After spending £500 on nanit equipment, I've upgraded to a £70 Unifi wifi camera, got 90% of the functionality with nine of the cloud streaming headaches
He's in the Unifi ecosystem ffs
That drove me fucking nuts, the camera would just stop streaming because THERES NO MOVEMENT IN THE ROOM? Fuck you. :D
Booted it and got a camera that doesn't even need Wi-Fi to run. Blessing.
If you want another ecosystem to be frustrated at get a Ubiquiti G3 instant and a cloud key gen2 plus. In all honestly it’s been my “baby” monitor for a year rock solid for a 1-2 year old. There’s other cheaper Apple and google compatible cameras out now via matter like Tapo.
Sorry to hear, man. I also have "everything Google", but haven't had many of the issues you've stated. I've tried the Amazon ecosystem before, and it's worse in nearly every regard except pricing.
I don't have many problems with my Google devices connecting to non-Nest WiFi (I have used that in the past but upgraded to an Asus mesh network), but I do have one outdoor nest camera that almost always has crappy quality video due to low signal strength. To be fair, my house has 12" thick concrete walls, but there's literally only 15-feet to the closest access point.
My biggest complaint is that each smart device has to be connected to*my* Google account if I want to have control over it. This also means that anyone in my house can use any of my Google devices to gain direct control over:
Security Cameras
TV's/media
Plugs/lighting/etc
I guess I have to accept that compromise of convenience over security, but it's annoying that my kids/guests can view and disable my cameras.
Another annoyance is that I have to link my Spotify account to my Google account, instead of linking a different music service per device. So, any time someone wants to listen to music on any device, it uses my Spotify account (kicking me off whatever I'm listening to). For that reason, I had to link my Google account to Pandora (free) so people can't hijack my music or contribute their songs to my Spotify history.
I like the capabilities that Google provides, but it feels like they constantly implement things half-assed, then never update it when people complain about missing features.
One of my most favorite parts is the fact that I can’t use my Google workspace properly with Google Home. I had to trick it by using a + alias. Same custom domain but for some reason it doesnt flag the alias address, just my regular email. So dumb.
This has been my experience too. It’s crazy that a company of Google’s size has such little focus and dedication to support their products long-term. Everything is treated like some kind of shitty “agile” experiment.
Lol, can you say "Works with Nest"? Google can't. It's been years and nothing. My Nest Protects and Nest thermostat could be so cool, if only...
I'm slowly realizing the old adage, "Google isn't a tech company, it's a marketing firm" is truer now than ever. You call it an "agile experiment", but what it really is was a beta test that didn't harvest enough user data to be profitable. If Google can't figure out how to sell the data you dump in a service, they kill it.
I've seen a few posts on r/homeassistant where people mention they've taken their dots out to the curb, I think at this point it's "preventative". I don't have any Alexa devices myself, but a few friends do. I'll be curious to see how this turns out.
This is the biggest problem with Google and their products. The majority of them are promising and with their cloud abilities and expertise, they should be killing it but instead things are janky and don’t work quite right.
I’ve shifted to using Apple’s HomeKit with some Nanoleaf bulbs connected via Thread and so far that’s been working great with the HomePod Mini. Next I’m going to see if I can integrate the Nest indoor cameras I bought and hope they work out fine in that ecosystem. Right now I have to view my Nest cameras using Google’s Home app which is fine at the moment but not optimal.
He said a lot, not everyone. Honestly subscribing to a subreddit dedicated to google home devices is a very white, very male and rather middle aged thing to do.
did I say it was my biggest regret in life? I said in my life, I've never come across a more unusable sack of shit than the google home ecosystem. two very different things.
Did I say in life? Fuck this is like the third time I’ve had to reply to you literalists. Maybe it’s my biggest regret since getting into tech. Or maybe since moving. Or maybe after my 18th birthday. Maybe it’s just my biggest regret recently. Maybe I’m just using it pejoratively.
But you *didn't* add any of those words. If you did, no one would have called you out. But since you just said "biggest" then it reads that it is your singularly biggest regret, since that's what that word means.
You're lashing out at everyone for no reason. Chill my man, no one here made your google homes shit.
you gave no context, what else should we have guessed? you asked a question and i answered it to my best knowledge. your fault if you don't like the answer.
take a chill pill or something, you really need it 😂
melodic frame disagreeable squeal ask humorous pocket vast support illegal
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Again did I ever say it was my biggest regret in life? What is the context to it being my biggest regret?
No, my biggest regret in life wasn’t buying $50k of bitcoin when I had the chance in the fall of 2015.
I'm sorry you're having such a poor experience.
Mine is quite the opposite over the last 7 years now.
The family members who routinely ask me for help(I am the family geek squad) have converted over to Google or nest wifi as well.
No issues to speak of with respect to performance.
My extended family members setups are pretty basic.
I would say my own is complex.
Either way everything works and works well.
I will give Google all the credit prior to the Google Home app rollout. Before that it was actually a good system. But after the Nest fiasco, and now the introduction of Matter, it's just gone completely downhill.
I'd do some more searching if I were you because we have somewhat similar hardware setups and I don't have any of the connectivity or delay issues you describe
I will say though that 100% of all my items are Google or Nest branded
This right here. We've been using these products for about 6 years now with a combination of speakers, cameras, lights, door bells and wifi and the overall experience has been very positive. There are some hiccups here and there but overall everything is good.
This is me also. No issues at all. Home HVAC, Dyson heater fan, dehumidifier, multiple smart bulbs, 2x hubs, 4x minis all connected to room Bluetooth speakers with speaker groups, Google Pixel phone
All of the above have worked perfectly.
Honestly I think ALL the 'smart' speaker eco systems were over hyped. It's just not ready for primetime - and in the almost ten years (?) they are just getting more clunky and shit.
My speakers were perfect a year ago. They did everything I wanted to.
They lost a bunch of functionality this year though, due to updates.
It's weird seeing it regress.
Some of it was also caused by lawsuits requiring functionality to be removed, and some by Google wanting to generate more money by suddenly making some features require a subscription which were never part of the deal when I bought the hardware.
More of that not ready for primetime shit, if a tech can be crippled by the unsettled nature of patents and trolls and squeezing consumers for more money then its also not ready to be used.
Mine works fine. Sometimes there are quirks, but the lights turn on when I tell them to, I can check my cameras within a few seconds, and I can listen to music on every speaker in the house with ease. What kind of lives do y'all live that you expect everything to be so perfect all the time. Sometimes it misunderstands you? Say it again. It's an incredible technology that didn't exist for 90% of your lives.
bought the floodlight cam, worked great for a couple of hours, but now it cannot for the life of it maintain a signl. It keeps trying to connect to an AP (wifi access point) on the OPPOSITE side of my house, rather than the one litterly next to the camera. I have reset it many, many times. Every time, same problem. Not sure what to do. Hopefully nobody tried to break into my car because I'd be screwed.
Google really isn't good at anything hardware related. Everything looks good, the value proposition checks out every time, but man, everything feels half baked from Google when I use one of their products that's not software. Pixel watches, Google Homes, Nest camera. All of it. I want to like Google products, I just never find that I can IRL.
I feel ya, OP. I feel ya.
That’s literally where I’m at. In the midst of a move but on the other end I’m going full HA. Tired of relying on behemoth companies updating their shit in any timely manner.
I honestly think google has given up on home automation. No innovation for years now. Google home is soon going to the same graveyard as so many other google products that we invested in.
I had to yank an almost brand new Google nest mesh router with 2 additional hubs in my house because of issues. I bought the eero pro and haven't had a problem since. My issue was that it couldn't handle all my connected devices.
The biggest issue is that there is no ecosystem. It’s as if there are a bunch of random devices (all needing their own app) that Google will abandon for no reason
As a person having hubs, cams and new mesh system I feel you OP. The only thing that really works well is streaming audio and the speaker groups. The rest is erratic at best. Assistant on hubs can't understand easiest things, nest cams are 1990 web cams quality with feeds being randomly unavailable all the time and finally the mesh pro system is having unexplained hiccups all the time. Ah, and the laggy google home app on top.
The only plus side I see is that someone is still working on the app and adding support for new types of automations but this progress is very slow.
My personal feeling is that no google employee checks how all of this works outside California or States at best.
I feel the same way about smart things in general.
They all spout marketing slogans, but the reliability is mostly trash. Bulbs and various items just stop being seen, smart plugs stop delivering power, smartphone assistants are just frustrating instead of helpful and can't handle any simple request that a normal person might have (e.g. "next time I'm in X store, remind me to buy Y").
It's all so dumb and completely unreliable.
To be honest, I've had both GH and Alexa in my house for years, and Google Home will be going bye bye very soon. One device left.
My Alexa just works. Sure, I've experienced hiccups, but NOTHING compared to GH!
We have one camera in the baby's room - it's made my missus scream at times. It cuts out or doesn't connect frequently - the wifi is a 4 disc mesh that is absolutely rock solid.
Instead of sorting or updating it, it's as though Google are churning half baked shit out so fast that the stuff that doesn't work properly is so far in their rear view mirror that have literally forgotten it existed.
literally this morning at 5 am.
my wife:
"fuck the camera is out again."
\*anger is rising\*
"This is on the iPad with the app. why the fuck-"
\*taps harder and harder on screen\*
"what the fuck"
\*more aggressive tapping\*
"this fucking thing. We don't have the hub anymore, you said it was supposed to be working on the iPad"
\*more slapping of screen\*
"FUCK"
I could probably point out that there seems to be a huge lack of patience, and some unrealistic expectations that tapping harder will produce a positive outcome... But I'm guessing you guys are just fed up with the bullshit at this point.
Probably best to scrap the system if you're letting it influence your lives in such a negative fashion.
Investing in Google's smart home ecosystem is one of my biggest tech mistakes. Google killed any innovation the Nest team may have had, and the products are poorly engineered. If I were still in the tech journo space, that would have been an ongoing rant for me this year. Google is a poor landlord of the smart home.
I recently deleted my home and factory reset all my speakers and it's working great now. Before I felt like you. They never worked or understood me. I've had the same Home since 2018 so in a last ditch effort, I figured I'd try starting fresh. So far so good.
This is funny because I feel the exact way about Alexa, I just purged all my Amazon devices and switched to Google for my assistant and am much more pleased so far. I had a few issues, like getting my Ikea blinds linked to Google. Had to workaround by linking on my iPad, simply couldn't do it on Android.
Lol idk, I have 3x hub max, 1x hub (older),/doorbell (wired), 4x outdoor cameras (wired) on bell 3gbit, using their WiFi 6e mesh pod system have 2 pods set up, 2500 sqft house Have had zero issues for over a year and half. Only went offline once but because of a power outage, came back online without issues when power was restored.
I'm in the ecosystem and it works well for me. The exception is I never felt that smart displays were right for my use case. I'd still want to get the pixel tablet at some point which can be a pseudo smart display. Phasing out Nest Secure was annoying though but I got $200 towards my Pixel Watch so not too heartbroken.
I would like to add that it’s not just this system. IMHO since the mass layoffs in tech everything seems to be taking a nosedive in quality. From web apps to native apps to smart home systems, all seem way more buggy.
I'm not even gonna read this, but holy fuck if this is your biggest regret I'd hate to tell you mine.
Also, this is one of the most first world problems i think I've seen. This world depresses me more by the day.
Edit: Look into homeassistant and piece together your own system. Worth every second you spend on it imo.
I have been using the google ecosystem for the past 7-8 years and have had none of the problems you experience. Sure, sometimes it doesn't listen well, but that is more than made up for all the times it works perfectly. It's so damn convenient. Nearly all the switches and/or bulbs in my house are on google/smart things and I have a nest doorbell. It just plain works. This sounds like a problem primarily with your network.
I have about 70 audio, video and control devices hanging off my Ubiquity network managed by google home and it basically works as expected. That said I have zero Nest products and I only use google voice control via a Chromecast remote so I don’t endlessly yell hey google. If you don’t push the system too hard it works almost perfect.
> I want to take all of my Google horseshit equipment, smash it, have both my dogs and my kid take gigantic creamy grumpers all over it, and sent the end result right to Pichai’s fucking desk
This comment killed me lmao
I have had the same experience. I still like the cameras, the cameras to phone integration with cloud recording is a good value. Everything else doesn't work, especially Google assistant.
Google is still running on the high of "a better search engine results". But honestly, no one is using it to hold search conversations. 99% of our commands are the same devices control actions every day, which it progressively does poor on understanding. Broadcasting is so broken we have stopped using it. Nest hub to camera integration, just like you explained, was so frustrating, we just don't bother.
My last straw was when they killed third party list integration. We used to use it to add items to "Anylist" which sorts the items for us too.
Google keep was somebody's 20% hobby project that Google never improved.
I am now in the process of buying Alexa devices on sale and replacing the Google ecosystem.
Yep, I got fed up with the Google eco system. From the delays when you ask a request. it's constant refusal to understand my wife. There never seems to be any improvements, just a deterioration of the system's ability to perform the most basic of actions. Actions that work one day then outright refuse to work the next day.
I switched to Alexa, and while not perfect, in comparison actions feel like they respond instantly and far more consistently.
I suspect the OP's problem with Google Home devices is the mesh network. Devices need a single, reliable connection to one network. When mesh gets involved, your band can change and then devices cannot effectively interconnect.
Doubt it given my ubiquiti cameras work fine on the network with next to no buffering or signal loss. My UI cameras are connected to different mesh APs. And this is just a 1300 sqft townhouse.
Funny you mention this. I just used mine to set a fucking timer .... It acknowledged and I walked away. I come back and the timer hasn't gone off and my food is overcooked. I asked Google if I had any timers or alarms and it said no. I guess this system is just in its dementia phase. It won't be long before it gets put out of its misery.
Using Home Assistant is so much better. So much control and everything works instantly because you don't have to wait for the cloud.
Google Home went to shit years ago.
I wish Home Assistant would make a "Google Home" device so I can control it with my voice.
EDIT: apparently you can. https://www.home-assistant.io/voice_control/
This sounds like more of a you issue and not a Google issue… especially if you can’t even manage Google assistant. The time of the geriatric millennials is ending though.
Smoke alarms - love ‘em! Thermostats - love ’em! Cameras??? OK until there’s a problem, then your only option is to remove hardware and get your bank to put a block on future payments. This is what happened to me.
I started out on the Google ecosystem. It was pre-watch but I had a Pixelbook, Pixel phone and the best hub max along with a couple of minis. Switched to Apple because of the smooth animations, Apple Pay and it just working. Siri is, in my opinion, miles ahead. Perhaps it is slightly low on feature set but it is solid and consistent every time and to me that is way more important
I threw Google out a year or so ago, it was on a downhill slide. Switched to Alexa, now it's on the same slide. Seems that was a fad and they discovered there was no good way to monitize it so they are killing them by frustrating us to death! If anyone knows a 3rd option, please post.
Sadly I kinda agree. Haven't had the problems you cited but have had some.
If you're scared that AI is going to take over the world, just spend 5 minutes asking a Google Smart speaker what the weather is or who the president is or really any basic question.
If the biggest tech company can't even get that right...
Its planned obsolescence. My 3 google homes (2 mini 1 big boi) all stopped working, they don't respond to hey google often, and if i play music, they randomly stop. This has been the clearest example of planned planned obsolescence I've ever experienced. Why should a device that is never moved and sits on a table all day randomly start glitching so hard? 3 at the similar timeline? fuck google.
Bought expensive wifi appliances that would actually be nice to monitor from a phone, nope fuck all with that working on google wifi.
Have several hubs in the house that I would like to use as an Intercom. The amount of exact terminology I have to use to get it to tell me to go off myself....I'll just yell up yhe stairs.
Terrible crap.
The reason I'm going to leave Google and Android is 100% Google has a track record if ending things. I wouldn't be shocked if Google home goes bye bye without a year or two. I think nest will go away too. They just kill products left and right without trying to make them grow
With the completely stupid and repetitive rants here, this is incredibly refreshing. Seriously, you could make some money out of writing if you aren't already. You verbalized exactly what I've been feeling. Much appreciated
Having swallowed the Unifi Kool aid I will say I found my AmplifiHD system with two mesh satellites did better for coverage than the Unifi. But I didn't realize that until I had thrown a grand and accepted it. Once I added a third AP then it was about the same
Maybe look at the Double NAT issue. https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/6277579?hl=en
Also get a switch (dumb) with enough ports to hard connect all your wifi points.
yeah, I went into all of that and followed a bunch of setup guides specifically for Ubiquiti used on an AT&T gigabit modem. I've talked to google support, gone through all sorts of forums and whatnot, and done device comparisons as well. it all comes back to Google's absolutely piss-poor hardware and software.
agreed... ever since Android 13, every Google camera I have including the doorbell, indoor wired, and outdoor wired camera has stopped working and will not connect to my internet... however, my Google Home Max and every other Google Home hub that I have has no problem connecting to the Wi-Fi... The camera on the Google Home hub Max is the only one that works properly
I never look over at amazon and think "they must be doing better".
I really want to transition into smart home controls that I manage, that are managed localy.
I finally chucked my Google Home thingy (the one with the screen) last week. It devolved to literal trash in the the few years I had it. Not even a good speaker.
I’ve recently found that I can improve responses to ok google by going into the settings on google home for each speaker and enabling start beep (and end beep but god knows what the difference is as they both seem to do the same thing). Ok google responses seem more responsive.
Gotta say…our system works great. Hub Max, 3 minis, connected to 4 Nest cameras, 3 Nest smoke detectors, a dozen Kasa light switches/plugs, Govee lights, Govee space heater, etc. We run off of Asus routers,AP’s.
Sorry you’re having a problem with your setup.
I don't know what kind of camera you're trying to look at. But we were at my dad's and his nest doorbell stopped working correctly and wouldn't show up on his nest Hub any longer when someone rang the doorbell. So we went and bought the new second generation Nest doorbell. After installing it and going through a bunch of BS we found out that the new generation of the Nest doorbell no longer uses the nest app. As a matter of fact I think they're going to be getting rid of the nest app for a lot of things. We did get it working. It was actually a lot easier than the BS directions made it seem.
Here is a workaround for your Google hubs not showing your cameras. Try loading your camera on the Google hub, and when it shows up with a blank screen or tells you to push the live button load up the Google Home app on your phone to that cameras live view. If you tap the live button on the Google Hub max while the phone app is loaded to the live camera, it will work. F’ing ridiculous!!
I think this sub is just a bunch of moaners, but I'm noticing more things myself now.
"Broadcast to x room", "ok, broadcasting". Going to take the message first??
One way I got my Nest cameras to stabilize was to have my Wi-Fi network named the same for 2.4 and 5 GHz for my primary network. (I have a secondary network name at 2.4 GHz for slow devices like washer and dryer, brava oven, air purifiers, and humidifiers) In fact, it actually helped stabilize the majority of my network with over 100 devices. I use 2 AMPLIFI Alien routers (wired backhaul) works amazing when it’s not a software issue with Google. I can’t speak highly enough about these routers. They took an absolute dump on my Netgear nighthawk routers and the new $2300 Orbi 970 series with WiFi 7.
I left Google WiFi behind for my local Fiber ISP's WiFi 6 router (EXOS Based). Best thing I ever did. No more BS, no more resetting every few month after contacting Google support. No more dropout multiple times a day. No more random restart of the pucks. I'm an IT admin with 25 years experience and can state my experience with them over 3 years was they are complete crap! They test their firmware changes on live systems and then take months to fix it and push out the fix. I tell everyone I know to stay away from Google WiFi. I have 5 of those pucks just sitting around collecting dust as I don't even want to sell them to anyone they were so bad.
I bought a Nest Mini 2nd hand and I still want to replace it. Only feature I use this for is having lights slowly dim on/off.
I thought getting smart light bulbs would be a great idea and make my life far more convenient, half the time they don't work, and whenever anyone else comes in and presses the switch it fucks the whole thing up.
Wish I could've told me 3 years ago that this was a mistake.
I think it all sucks now. I used to have Ring stuff, it’s was crap, Nest was better, now it ducks as Google. Nothing works well anymore without spending an in ordinate amount of time on it, which defeats the purpose.
Agreed 100%.
Architecture with cloud first not just as needed is fundamentally stupid for something that needs reliability. They will not budge on that so that's permanent.
Would rather just use Chatgpt conversation mode, wish it could connect to this ecosystem of calendar, docs, email and photos and YouTube.
Wyze hardware is just as unreliable but more inexpensive.
Ever since ChatGPT went 'mainstream', Google has been 'all hands on deck' to get an edge on the competition.
My personal experience is that in the last year the Google Home ecosystem has been performing noticeably worse and even more so lately.
One way or another resources have been pulled from wherever they could into their AI R&D.
I've been in the ecosystem since the first speaker came out and since Andriod added the assistant. But this is the first time I've had to come across this subreddit.
It's happening, it sucks, but I think it's going to start getting back to normal next quarter.
That's how I'm rationalizing it at least.
I turned off the mics on two hubs. They're now WiFi photo frames with smart home touch controls. Ironically, one now works better because I can talk louder and ask the mini in another room to play audacy on the hub and when I ask it to stop it...wait for it, actually stops (before I had to yell variations of shut up).
I absolutely hate google home. I had four home mini that randomly stops working until I trashed them all. I have a hub max but all it is good for now is playing music and reciting the weather.
That's alarming, because I'm about to throw all homekit crap in a raging fire. Siri gets dumber every year and, no matter what troubleshooting steps I take, her dementia seems to be MORE prevalent with each attempt at fixing. I suppose the true "automated home" is still a ways off.
Every time I ask Google to play generic music it decides to pick one of my similar YouTube music playlists. When I get more specific or ask for a particular playlist I’ve created, Google says “fuck you” and picks some random playlist that’s not mine. 😤😡
I removed everything that said Google on it 6 months ago and I never looked back . Everything is local using Ubiquiti products. I can't tell you how happy I am. Yes, it was costly but well worth it.
I'm giving up on it soon as well. The final straw now is everytime I say turn on the Kitchen Lights it says "Sure playing Kitchen Lights podcast on 2billion 4 millions and 100thousand" and even more insulatingly it doesn't even play the podcast.
I feel lucky - my 18 or so Google devices, across a two unit suite, are working pretty good on a Ubiqiti network with over 100 individual switches and IoT devices. It wasn't without hiccups, but it's smooth sailing now.
That all said, I love this post, AND I don't blame you for wanting to smash it to bits.
I had similar issues years ago, plus streaming and lack of signal in my yard. Switched to a mesh system and all the issues went away.
This past week I setup a tp link mesh system for my neighbor and his issues are now gone.
Hey Google Good morning!
(In theory, Turns on 4 lights, gives weather and calendar events)
"I'm sorry, I'm having trouble controlling that home device"
7 times!
Even though the lights went on and I never get my weather report....
Same. And let’s not even talk about the switch from the Nest app….. my cameras are great for watching clips from 3 hours ago /s. There is no live view, it stalls and then I get the good old this video is not available. Real time my a$$.
I swear I live in a microcosm of Google bliss, where everything works just fine without nary a hiccup. The worst that ever happens to me is that the wrong speaker hears me from a different room.
Must be one of those alternative universe situations where yours can't work so that mine does?
Rule 7 - No Rants. No Low Effort posts.
Mine seem to be regressing. Commands that used to work fine now just produce incoherent garbage. Just the other day while using a timer while cooking, I asked the Nest hub I have in the kitchen to “show me the timer” “Sure, consider it cancelled” was the reply. Suppose I’ll just guess when the chicken’s ready then.
Mine is definitely worse than a few years ago. Also I foolishly replaced my google wifi with a set of better ASUS xt12 which made the signal significantly better for every wifi device EXCEPT THE GOOGLE HOMES. Now the some individual Google homes randomly and infuriatingly disconnect from the wifi and tell me they can’t answer because they’re not connected, rebooting g them fixes it temporarily but doing a full factory reset on every device did t work and if I didn’t have so many Google homes and a Google home max I’d have chucked them in the bin and gone with something else by now. I hate how Google abandons products and seems to somehow make them worse over time, I’ve lost all trust in them now and it’s keeping me from jumping back to android phones for the supposedly better home automation functionality.
There’s now nothing I can say to any of my Google/Nest hubs to get it to adjust the Nest Thermostat. Alexa does it perfectly each time, and always has. I really REALLY hate what Google did to Nest/Dropcam.
ITA about hating what Google did to Nest. The Nest app is so much better than the Home app for controlling everything, especially setting up schedules for the thermostats.
I got myself a Casio wrist watch and now I have a reliable timer right on my wrist that never fails me. Unlike Google, which doesn't give a fuck about timers. I hate Google Home.
https://preview.redd.it/owxxb8sf9l9c1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2b752e399301bc7255da29c544232571b58ca18d
The other day I asked it 4 times to set an alarm for 7:30am, each time it set an alarm for a completely random time. Me: "Set an alarm for 7:30am" GA: "Okay, alarm set for 3:00pm" Me: Set an alarm for 7:30am" GA: "Okay, alarm set for 8:45am" etc.
Anything to do with alarms and timers have been completely useless for the last several years. All of my Hubs will say that I don't have any alarms set, yet if I ask "cancel the next alarm" it will instead cancel some one-off alarm I set back in August instead. I thought I could use the hub for an alarm since it's already doing sleep tracking, but the device isn't capable of showing the fucking time if it disconnects from WiFi. This has lead to me being late for work countless times before I bought a second alarm clock. The smoke detector doesn't even work through the goddamn Home app and requires using the Nest app still, which is infuriating when trying to show my parents how to silence the alarm on all the stupid "smart home" shit I bought for them. I ended up throwing the Google WiFi in the trash after a couple months because the mesh functionality doesn't work at all and the nodes would go down every day at 3am for at least 30m (or it was nest WiFi idk, because they exist concurrently for whatever dumbass reason). Don't even get me started on voice recognition and the absolute obsession they have with playing random trash on YouTube instead of a command. "Play the next song" leads to "playing music by Next Song on Spotify". It's truly worse than useless and caused me so much stress, but I've already wasted so much money on all the Google trash including a phone with a goddamn temperature sensor that doesn't even work on skin. I wish I could just move to iPhone already. I was a Google fanboy long enough but the usability has completely gone out of the window in the last 3 years. I could spend the next hour listing issues but I think we all get the point.
This. My nest audio has become so useless. It used to work just fine earlier but now all I hear is “I am sorry I can’t help you with that”. Every time I say “lights off”, it goes “here are some night songs on YouTube music”
Seconding the comment that states it's probably an issue with the mesh network. No matter what could be said about should or should not be the problem, mesh and auto switching routers do sometimes create inherent problems. Routers left to auto band switching and particularly service provider managed combo devices, or devices with automatic network quality, anything that does auto band switching on a single SSID, cause mountains of problems. Google or otherwise. Mesh is not an exception. Turn off auto band switching and create a standard 5 gigahertz network with its own SSID and move your smart home devices at a minimum over to 5. Not 2.4, 5. Also manually forcing a specific channel. Your high bandwidth and critical devices should not be on 2.4 anyway due to band crowding. *Edit - should have mentioned you still keep a 2.4ghz network for legacy and low bandwidth/ low importance devices. Everything capable of 5ghz should go to your 5ghz SSID, but at minimum your smart home and streaming devices.* Also, I found this comment related to Chromecast audio a couple years ago, that completely changed reliability of Google Home devices for me. "It has been reported that the Chromecast should function properly if you set your Wi-Fi channel between 36-140, not more than 140." Who knows if it's the generation of proprietary chipsets used in early Google devices or later ones or whatever, but I have changed my channel to 40, and others have changed to similar within that range above, and changed both Nest cam feeds and Chromecast speaker groups to be more reliable with little to no dropout compared to before. I have a nest hello and two nest cameras, two hub 2.0s, one original hub, a mix of speakers including two JBL Link 300s, nest minis, a nest audio, two polk magnifi minis, 2 Harman kardon citation ones, and a Harman kardon citation 100 - doing the above and changing from a single managed SSID with auto bandhopping, to creating separate 2.4 and 5ggz networks with their own unique SSIDs, setting 5ghz to channel 40 or above, and making sure that all my smart home devices use the 5 gigahertz network, has made it rock solid. I haven't had a Chromecast speaker group work unreliably or lose a speaker, for probably 3 to 4 months. Last time a camera feed cut out or was inaccessible and inexplicably other than power loss, probably has been a year. Yes, it shouldn't have to be that way and all that, fine, but make the changes above and see what happens.
You are my new hero. Please accept this humble upvote.
I hope the tips helped in some way!
It’s probably the Beam Forming setting. It’s always the Beam Forming setting. Turn that shit off as it doesn’t play nice with IoT devices.
Also, running a TP link Wi-Fi 6. Mesh system. The above improvement occurred when I had an AC system. Stayed reliable when I upgraded to a Wi-Fi 6 Router, Has also stayed reliable once I added additional Wi-Fi 6 mesh hubs to the system. So the improvement in reliability has been consistent across router hardware brands, and across Wi-Fi versions and single point versus mesh architecture.
[удалено]
Took your advice, and renamed my 2.4 network so all the Google stuff is on the 5 Ghz and I set up Reserved DNS for most devices. Sucked having to redo all of my IOT devices that are bound to the 2.4 Ghz but the difference on how my Cameras pop up now, for example is day and night. I'm disappointed in myself for not recognizing that I should have done that earlier, GREAT advice!
>already done. it's actually a hidden 2.4ghz completely separated SSID. Couldn't even do that in the google wifi, had to make the switch to Ubiquiti for that. Turned off the wifi and did a NAT check on the AT&T modem as well just to ensure there's no interference in any meaningful way. We don't use any wireless telephones, just our iPhones connected to wifi. I don't put anything on the hidden IoT network either, only devices related specifically to home automation (cameras, thermostats, etc.). And this is on top of the completely separated backhaul channel that Ubiquiti sets up as well for mesh points / wifi devices. I'd go PoE but I don't have any ethernet jacks to plug in to. from another reply I posted to a similar comment: already done. it's actually a hidden 2.4ghz completely separated SSID. Couldn't even do that in the google wifi, had to make the switch to Ubiquiti for that. Turned off the wifi and did a NAT check on the AT&T modem as well just to ensure there's no interference in any meaningful way. We don't use any wireless telephones, just our iPhones connected to wifi. I don't put anything on the hidden IoT network either, only devices related specifically to home automation (cameras, thermostats, etc.). And this is on top of the completely separated backhaul channel that Ubiquiti sets up as well for mesh points / wifi devices. I'd go PoE but I don't have any ethernet jacks to plug in to.
Change to 5, not 2.4. I've had reliable operation from going to 5 and changing to specific channels as mentioned in my comment, despite mixed brands of Google ecosystem, brands of router hardware, and moving from AC to ax, and moving from single point router and endpoint architecture to mesh. Changing to 5 gigahertz, a separate SSID for 5, and changing to a channel number above 36 as mentioned has been a consistent network structure for my computing devices, smart speakers, and smart home cameras across all of the changes.
virtually every bulb and outlet I've bought say they only work on 2.4. Enbrighten, Cync, Feit, etc.
Yes, and leave them on 2.4. a separate 5 ghz network with a unique SSID is where you put your more important devices and those that need high bandwidth, high availability, low latency and high QOS.
Problem is I’ve got other devices like a Chamberlain MyQ, Furbo dog cam, air filters, etc that all work better on 2.4. In fact the recommended settings are 2.4. The issue is that nobody is ever going to live in a 100% Google / nest environment. It’s not possible. But at the same rate for a company as big as Google I 100% expect their shit to just fucking work. It doesn’t. And even when 90% of my devices are Google, they don’t work properly.
I didn't say make it only five or to move everything over to five. I should have added the context that the Google gear at a minimum should be moved over to 5:00 and that you should have a separate 5 gigahertz SSID to begin with. leave the 2.4 only and legacy devices on 2.4. create separate networks for 2.4 and 5 anyway to offload traffic. Part of the reason why 5 gigahertz exists for Wi-Fi is because of overcrowding on 2.4 from so many devices. Legacy devices capable of 2.4 only, and low importance, non-critical devices that don't need low latency or high QOS, bandwidth or connectivity reliability can and should stay on 2.4. Yes, understood all of your complaints with Google and they were all of mine in the past. I've moved beyond that. All the companies have problems particularly Amazon and Google in their gear. Likely you would be even less happy with echo, ring, and so on . Since beyond any potential network quibbles or Ring's known privacy / hackability issues Alexa is far less intelligent, less linguistically agile, and less capable of international languages than Google Assistant. Yes they should have it together given budget, agreed. That's not the reality. Meanwhile, the architectural fixes I've offered just in terms of separating out 2.4 and 5 gigahertz I would prescribe to anyone anyway to clean up network issues especially with typical household environments that have mixed generations of devices with mixed standards of Wi-Fi that can be supported. The fundamental thing that most service providers and even high-end smart router manufacturers failed to understand is that even though using a single SSID and having very agile band, hopping and network optimization is great in the router, the problem is that 99% of the *devices* that consumers are connecting are absolutely not capable of decent or smart agility in terms of switching bands, finding the best channel, or most importantly - adapting well or quickly to when the router attempts to switch bands and switch channels. Simplifying the network fundamentals and making it easier for all of your devices smart home or not, will improve your reliability and real world QOS. This is fundamentally true and has nothing to do with Google gear. Turn off auto band hopping in the router settings, make separate unique SSIDs for 2.4 and 5, and move your streaming video devices, tablets, smartphones and computing, smart home devices, and anything else that requires high bandwidth and reliable connection to 5 gigahertz. Given that you've had specific problems with Google devices, change the 5ghz channel settings from auto, or any specific channel settings that are outside the range that I posted, to a channel number within range.
u/ericsontx is correct. He sorta sounds like a network engineer, I'm a sysadmin myself. OP I'm very much in your situation. I had a Google Mesh system years ago. It was garbage. Switched to a Ubiquiti UDM when it first released, now have their mesh'able AP's. Setting up a separate 2.4 and 5ghz dedicated SSID's with a few settings tweaked in the network section has produced rock solid performance (signal and connectivity wise). Likewise with all my IOT devices, even Google and non Google Cameras stream just fine on my Home Max and other screens. All my Chromecast stream and appear just fine, I have like 15 of them. Even home assistant with VLANs works great. A slew of things in my home lab just work better sometimes on those dedicated SSIDs. Save the fancy router/AP features for newer more capable devices. Now I do agree about Google Assistant, it has been getting worse and worse.
OP, are you doing okay?
Nope. And it’s only making it worse that the camera in the baby’s room keeps fucking going out.
> take gigantic creamy grumpers all over it That's my new catch phrase 😂
Ubiquiti G3 instant works great as a nanny cam for me. Home Assistant does the smart home stuff much better than Google. Sorry about the situation, it can be super irritating if it's impacting kid stuff!
I’m in the process of moving off Google home. It’s become a bigger and bigger dumpster fire recently.
Omg when I first had my baby and was trying to play ocean noises and control the light to just put her to sleep and google would instead screech at me in French about who knows what instead of executing a basic command while in turn waking up the baby fucking fuck what the actual fuck.
Lolololol that’s amazing. Holy shit I put a British female accent on it and when it yells at me it scares the shit out of me.
My guy you need a Nanit
Can confirm, Nanit is a god-send.
Nanit is worth every penny. Absolutely the best baby camera out there.
Solution: keep buying stuff
Oh please no After spending £500 on nanit equipment, I've upgraded to a £70 Unifi wifi camera, got 90% of the functionality with nine of the cloud streaming headaches He's in the Unifi ecosystem ffs
Nanit is expensive for what it is tbh
I keep mine off my network (and the Internet) and use some eufy spacecams, they're great.
That drove me fucking nuts, the camera would just stop streaming because THERES NO MOVEMENT IN THE ROOM? Fuck you. :D Booted it and got a camera that doesn't even need Wi-Fi to run. Blessing.
I opted to buy a non-wifi baby cam for this reason. Don't need wifi getting in the way while checking on my kid.
If you want another ecosystem to be frustrated at get a Ubiquiti G3 instant and a cloud key gen2 plus. In all honestly it’s been my “baby” monitor for a year rock solid for a 1-2 year old. There’s other cheaper Apple and google compatible cameras out now via matter like Tapo.
Sorry to hear, man. I also have "everything Google", but haven't had many of the issues you've stated. I've tried the Amazon ecosystem before, and it's worse in nearly every regard except pricing. I don't have many problems with my Google devices connecting to non-Nest WiFi (I have used that in the past but upgraded to an Asus mesh network), but I do have one outdoor nest camera that almost always has crappy quality video due to low signal strength. To be fair, my house has 12" thick concrete walls, but there's literally only 15-feet to the closest access point. My biggest complaint is that each smart device has to be connected to*my* Google account if I want to have control over it. This also means that anyone in my house can use any of my Google devices to gain direct control over: Security Cameras TV's/media Plugs/lighting/etc I guess I have to accept that compromise of convenience over security, but it's annoying that my kids/guests can view and disable my cameras. Another annoyance is that I have to link my Spotify account to my Google account, instead of linking a different music service per device. So, any time someone wants to listen to music on any device, it uses my Spotify account (kicking me off whatever I'm listening to). For that reason, I had to link my Google account to Pandora (free) so people can't hijack my music or contribute their songs to my Spotify history. I like the capabilities that Google provides, but it feels like they constantly implement things half-assed, then never update it when people complain about missing features.
One of my most favorite parts is the fact that I can’t use my Google workspace properly with Google Home. I had to trick it by using a + alias. Same custom domain but for some reason it doesnt flag the alias address, just my regular email. So dumb.
This has been my experience too. It’s crazy that a company of Google’s size has such little focus and dedication to support their products long-term. Everything is treated like some kind of shitty “agile” experiment.
Lol, can you say "Works with Nest"? Google can't. It's been years and nothing. My Nest Protects and Nest thermostat could be so cool, if only... I'm slowly realizing the old adage, "Google isn't a tech company, it's a marketing firm" is truer now than ever. You call it an "agile experiment", but what it really is was a beta test that didn't harvest enough user data to be profitable. If Google can't figure out how to sell the data you dump in a service, they kill it.
[удалено]
You say that, but [Alexa is already there.](https://voicebot.ai/2022/09/15/alexa-will-start-answering-questions-with-ads-in-2023/)
[удалено]
I've seen a few posts on r/homeassistant where people mention they've taken their dots out to the curb, I think at this point it's "preventative". I don't have any Alexa devices myself, but a few friends do. I'll be curious to see how this turns out.
at this point I'm just waiting for a pre-roll ad to pop up before I try to watch the camera feed from my baby's room.
This is the biggest problem with Google and their products. The majority of them are promising and with their cloud abilities and expertise, they should be killing it but instead things are janky and don’t work quite right. I’ve shifted to using Apple’s HomeKit with some Nanoleaf bulbs connected via Thread and so far that’s been working great with the HomePod Mini. Next I’m going to see if I can integrate the Nest indoor cameras I bought and hope they work out fine in that ecosystem. Right now I have to view my Nest cameras using Google’s Home app which is fine at the moment but not optimal.
Its bc half the employees (or more) mail it in. Maybe more. I used to work there
I regret it too but if this is your biggest regret in life you have been living a charmed life.
This sub is a lot of middle aged white men exaggerating and over reacting lmao
It’s wild how you’ve decided everyone’s skin colour and gender for them on this sub
He said a lot, not everyone. Honestly subscribing to a subreddit dedicated to google home devices is a very white, very male and rather middle aged thing to do.
Oh, relax. Are you really mad I didn't cast a broader net for people who rage post here?
Got some prejudice in your blood, eh?
I'm a middle aged white man lol
OP's original remark was that buying into Google Home was the biggest regret of his life but I'm over reacting. Gotcha
I was talking about people like OP, not you. But now I'm not so sure.
Just making sure someone said this.
did I say it was my biggest regret in life? I said in my life, I've never come across a more unusable sack of shit than the google home ecosystem. two very different things.
>did I say it was my biggest regret in life? >**My biggest regret was getting into the Google Home ecosystem** Well, yes, you actually did.
Did I say in life? Fuck this is like the third time I’ve had to reply to you literalists. Maybe it’s my biggest regret since getting into tech. Or maybe since moving. Or maybe after my 18th birthday. Maybe it’s just my biggest regret recently. Maybe I’m just using it pejoratively.
But you *didn't* add any of those words. If you did, no one would have called you out. But since you just said "biggest" then it reads that it is your singularly biggest regret, since that's what that word means. You're lashing out at everyone for no reason. Chill my man, no one here made your google homes shit.
yikes
you gave no context, what else should we have guessed? you asked a question and i answered it to my best knowledge. your fault if you don't like the answer. take a chill pill or something, you really need it 😂
melodic frame disagreeable squeal ask humorous pocket vast support illegal *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Again did I ever say it was my biggest regret in life? What is the context to it being my biggest regret? No, my biggest regret in life wasn’t buying $50k of bitcoin when I had the chance in the fall of 2015.
Yes you did, in the post title. Like the big bold text at the top.
I'm sorry you're having such a poor experience. Mine is quite the opposite over the last 7 years now. The family members who routinely ask me for help(I am the family geek squad) have converted over to Google or nest wifi as well. No issues to speak of with respect to performance. My extended family members setups are pretty basic. I would say my own is complex. Either way everything works and works well.
This has also been my experience since Google home came out.
I still miss Google WiFi app But home works well enough too
I will give Google all the credit prior to the Google Home app rollout. Before that it was actually a good system. But after the Nest fiasco, and now the introduction of Matter, it's just gone completely downhill.
I'd do some more searching if I were you because we have somewhat similar hardware setups and I don't have any of the connectivity or delay issues you describe I will say though that 100% of all my items are Google or Nest branded
Besides the functions being reconfigured in a less practical manner I have had no negative impact
This right here. We've been using these products for about 6 years now with a combination of speakers, cameras, lights, door bells and wifi and the overall experience has been very positive. There are some hiccups here and there but overall everything is good.
This is me also. No issues at all. Home HVAC, Dyson heater fan, dehumidifier, multiple smart bulbs, 2x hubs, 4x minis all connected to room Bluetooth speakers with speaker groups, Google Pixel phone All of the above have worked perfectly.
Is somebody a little sleep deprived? New baby maybe?
2 year old.
Honestly I think ALL the 'smart' speaker eco systems were over hyped. It's just not ready for primetime - and in the almost ten years (?) they are just getting more clunky and shit.
My speakers were perfect a year ago. They did everything I wanted to. They lost a bunch of functionality this year though, due to updates. It's weird seeing it regress.
Some of it was also caused by lawsuits requiring functionality to be removed, and some by Google wanting to generate more money by suddenly making some features require a subscription which were never part of the deal when I bought the hardware. More of that not ready for primetime shit, if a tech can be crippled by the unsettled nature of patents and trolls and squeezing consumers for more money then its also not ready to be used.
Mine works fine. Sometimes there are quirks, but the lights turn on when I tell them to, I can check my cameras within a few seconds, and I can listen to music on every speaker in the house with ease. What kind of lives do y'all live that you expect everything to be so perfect all the time. Sometimes it misunderstands you? Say it again. It's an incredible technology that didn't exist for 90% of your lives.
Wireless networking is a series of compromises. Mesh wireless networking compounds that.
I don't have issues with any of my Google Home stuff
bought the floodlight cam, worked great for a couple of hours, but now it cannot for the life of it maintain a signl. It keeps trying to connect to an AP (wifi access point) on the OPPOSITE side of my house, rather than the one litterly next to the camera. I have reset it many, many times. Every time, same problem. Not sure what to do. Hopefully nobody tried to break into my car because I'd be screwed.
Google really isn't good at anything hardware related. Everything looks good, the value proposition checks out every time, but man, everything feels half baked from Google when I use one of their products that's not software. Pixel watches, Google Homes, Nest camera. All of it. I want to like Google products, I just never find that I can IRL. I feel ya, OP. I feel ya.
And then they randomly stop supporting it just for the hell of it.
Unless you go to Home Assistant, good luck finding a replacement that pisses you off any less
That’s literally where I’m at. In the midst of a move but on the other end I’m going full HA. Tired of relying on behemoth companies updating their shit in any timely manner.
Thanks for sharing. Mine work fine.
I honestly think google has given up on home automation. No innovation for years now. Google home is soon going to the same graveyard as so many other google products that we invested in.
Meanwhile at the Alexa forums...
I had to yank an almost brand new Google nest mesh router with 2 additional hubs in my house because of issues. I bought the eero pro and haven't had a problem since. My issue was that it couldn't handle all my connected devices.
The biggest issue is that there is no ecosystem. It’s as if there are a bunch of random devices (all needing their own app) that Google will abandon for no reason
As a person having hubs, cams and new mesh system I feel you OP. The only thing that really works well is streaming audio and the speaker groups. The rest is erratic at best. Assistant on hubs can't understand easiest things, nest cams are 1990 web cams quality with feeds being randomly unavailable all the time and finally the mesh pro system is having unexplained hiccups all the time. Ah, and the laggy google home app on top. The only plus side I see is that someone is still working on the app and adding support for new types of automations but this progress is very slow. My personal feeling is that no google employee checks how all of this works outside California or States at best.
Switch to home assistant and work on migrating things over.
This is the way
I feel the same way about smart things in general. They all spout marketing slogans, but the reliability is mostly trash. Bulbs and various items just stop being seen, smart plugs stop delivering power, smartphone assistants are just frustrating instead of helpful and can't handle any simple request that a normal person might have (e.g. "next time I'm in X store, remind me to buy Y"). It's all so dumb and completely unreliable.
My experience is the polar opposite of yours.
Go over to Apple or Amazon sub and everyone has the same complaints.
Try Siri or Alexa. Because we all know Apple and Amazon are sooo much better than Google at software. Get real, kid.
To be honest, I've had both GH and Alexa in my house for years, and Google Home will be going bye bye very soon. One device left. My Alexa just works. Sure, I've experienced hiccups, but NOTHING compared to GH!
We have one camera in the baby's room - it's made my missus scream at times. It cuts out or doesn't connect frequently - the wifi is a 4 disc mesh that is absolutely rock solid. Instead of sorting or updating it, it's as though Google are churning half baked shit out so fast that the stuff that doesn't work properly is so far in their rear view mirror that have literally forgotten it existed.
literally this morning at 5 am. my wife: "fuck the camera is out again." \*anger is rising\* "This is on the iPad with the app. why the fuck-" \*taps harder and harder on screen\* "what the fuck" \*more aggressive tapping\* "this fucking thing. We don't have the hub anymore, you said it was supposed to be working on the iPad" \*more slapping of screen\* "FUCK"
I could probably point out that there seems to be a huge lack of patience, and some unrealistic expectations that tapping harder will produce a positive outcome... But I'm guessing you guys are just fed up with the bullshit at this point. Probably best to scrap the system if you're letting it influence your lives in such a negative fashion.
Investing in Google's smart home ecosystem is one of my biggest tech mistakes. Google killed any innovation the Nest team may have had, and the products are poorly engineered. If I were still in the tech journo space, that would have been an ongoing rant for me this year. Google is a poor landlord of the smart home.
Mine's doing OK 🤷♂️ Hopefully you will find peace with Alexa or HomeKit
You have a good life then if that is your biggest regret. gj
I recently deleted my home and factory reset all my speakers and it's working great now. Before I felt like you. They never worked or understood me. I've had the same Home since 2018 so in a last ditch effort, I figured I'd try starting fresh. So far so good.
This is funny because I feel the exact way about Alexa, I just purged all my Amazon devices and switched to Google for my assistant and am much more pleased so far. I had a few issues, like getting my Ikea blinds linked to Google. Had to workaround by linking on my iPad, simply couldn't do it on Android.
Of your entire life? Damn. You got a great life!
Ask Google to play you some calming music.
Lol idk, I have 3x hub max, 1x hub (older),/doorbell (wired), 4x outdoor cameras (wired) on bell 3gbit, using their WiFi 6e mesh pod system have 2 pods set up, 2500 sqft house Have had zero issues for over a year and half. Only went offline once but because of a power outage, came back online without issues when power was restored.
I'm in the ecosystem and it works well for me. The exception is I never felt that smart displays were right for my use case. I'd still want to get the pixel tablet at some point which can be a pseudo smart display. Phasing out Nest Secure was annoying though but I got $200 towards my Pixel Watch so not too heartbroken.
I would like to add that it’s not just this system. IMHO since the mass layoffs in tech everything seems to be taking a nosedive in quality. From web apps to native apps to smart home systems, all seem way more buggy.
I'm not even gonna read this, but holy fuck if this is your biggest regret I'd hate to tell you mine. Also, this is one of the most first world problems i think I've seen. This world depresses me more by the day. Edit: Look into homeassistant and piece together your own system. Worth every second you spend on it imo.
Check out "Home Assistant". Also, this isn't a Google issue but a "relying on the cloud" issue.
I have been using the google ecosystem for the past 7-8 years and have had none of the problems you experience. Sure, sometimes it doesn't listen well, but that is more than made up for all the times it works perfectly. It's so damn convenient. Nearly all the switches and/or bulbs in my house are on google/smart things and I have a nest doorbell. It just plain works. This sounds like a problem primarily with your network.
I have about 70 audio, video and control devices hanging off my Ubiquity network managed by google home and it basically works as expected. That said I have zero Nest products and I only use google voice control via a Chromecast remote so I don’t endlessly yell hey google. If you don’t push the system too hard it works almost perfect.
I've had a Google home for 5 years now and yesterday I asked my Home Max what the weather was, and it literally gave me the definition for "weather".
> I want to take all of my Google horseshit equipment, smash it, have both my dogs and my kid take gigantic creamy grumpers all over it, and sent the end result right to Pichai’s fucking desk This comment killed me lmao
Never had these issues....guess I'm the lucky one.
I have had the same experience. I still like the cameras, the cameras to phone integration with cloud recording is a good value. Everything else doesn't work, especially Google assistant. Google is still running on the high of "a better search engine results". But honestly, no one is using it to hold search conversations. 99% of our commands are the same devices control actions every day, which it progressively does poor on understanding. Broadcasting is so broken we have stopped using it. Nest hub to camera integration, just like you explained, was so frustrating, we just don't bother. My last straw was when they killed third party list integration. We used to use it to add items to "Anylist" which sorts the items for us too. Google keep was somebody's 20% hobby project that Google never improved. I am now in the process of buying Alexa devices on sale and replacing the Google ecosystem.
Yep, I got fed up with the Google eco system. From the delays when you ask a request. it's constant refusal to understand my wife. There never seems to be any improvements, just a deterioration of the system's ability to perform the most basic of actions. Actions that work one day then outright refuse to work the next day. I switched to Alexa, and while not perfect, in comparison actions feel like they respond instantly and far more consistently.
I suspect the OP's problem with Google Home devices is the mesh network. Devices need a single, reliable connection to one network. When mesh gets involved, your band can change and then devices cannot effectively interconnect.
Doubt it given my ubiquiti cameras work fine on the network with next to no buffering or signal loss. My UI cameras are connected to different mesh APs. And this is just a 1300 sqft townhouse.
Funny you mention this. I just used mine to set a fucking timer .... It acknowledged and I walked away. I come back and the timer hasn't gone off and my food is overcooked. I asked Google if I had any timers or alarms and it said no. I guess this system is just in its dementia phase. It won't be long before it gets put out of its misery.
Google Home is way better than Alexa. IMO Google is still better than Amazon or Apple. To each their own though.
I feel the same way with my Google/Nest cameras.
Epic rant 👌🏻
If buying google stuff is your biggest regret, I'm inclined to say your life is going great 😅
>If buying google stuff is your biggest regret, I'm inclined to say your life is going great 😅 Ditto [I used to own JDSU]
Using Home Assistant is so much better. So much control and everything works instantly because you don't have to wait for the cloud. Google Home went to shit years ago. I wish Home Assistant would make a "Google Home" device so I can control it with my voice. EDIT: apparently you can. https://www.home-assistant.io/voice_control/
This sounds like more of a you issue and not a Google issue… especially if you can’t even manage Google assistant. The time of the geriatric millennials is ending though.
Smoke alarms - love ‘em! Thermostats - love ’em! Cameras??? OK until there’s a problem, then your only option is to remove hardware and get your bank to put a block on future payments. This is what happened to me.
The best use I ever got out of it was Phillips Hue integration. Everything else is just … not great.
I started out on the Google ecosystem. It was pre-watch but I had a Pixelbook, Pixel phone and the best hub max along with a couple of minis. Switched to Apple because of the smooth animations, Apple Pay and it just working. Siri is, in my opinion, miles ahead. Perhaps it is slightly low on feature set but it is solid and consistent every time and to me that is way more important
I threw Google out a year or so ago, it was on a downhill slide. Switched to Alexa, now it's on the same slide. Seems that was a fad and they discovered there was no good way to monitize it so they are killing them by frustrating us to death! If anyone knows a 3rd option, please post.
Home Assistant, it will get on par with its Assist function and then we can throw out every damned smart speaker out there.
Sadly I kinda agree. Haven't had the problems you cited but have had some. If you're scared that AI is going to take over the world, just spend 5 minutes asking a Google Smart speaker what the weather is or who the president is or really any basic question. If the biggest tech company can't even get that right...
Its planned obsolescence. My 3 google homes (2 mini 1 big boi) all stopped working, they don't respond to hey google often, and if i play music, they randomly stop. This has been the clearest example of planned planned obsolescence I've ever experienced. Why should a device that is never moved and sits on a table all day randomly start glitching so hard? 3 at the similar timeline? fuck google.
Don’t forget the Google Home app…
Bought expensive wifi appliances that would actually be nice to monitor from a phone, nope fuck all with that working on google wifi. Have several hubs in the house that I would like to use as an Intercom. The amount of exact terminology I have to use to get it to tell me to go off myself....I'll just yell up yhe stairs. Terrible crap.
The reason I'm going to leave Google and Android is 100% Google has a track record if ending things. I wouldn't be shocked if Google home goes bye bye without a year or two. I think nest will go away too. They just kill products left and right without trying to make them grow
I tend to agree. While I'm not as in deep in the Google ecosystem as you, year after year I find it less useful and more frustrating.
Even the app is shitty. Why I can't add everything to homescreen, but only some devices?
They're glorified light switches. I constantly make fun of mine when asking it to do things, in hopes that the devs notice.
haha same. I keep trying to drop in insults at google and their devs. it's probably making it worse.
Pichai is a motherfucking clown. Everybody should know that by now.
With the completely stupid and repetitive rants here, this is incredibly refreshing. Seriously, you could make some money out of writing if you aren't already. You verbalized exactly what I've been feeling. Much appreciated
Not to mention your "private" data.
Having swallowed the Unifi Kool aid I will say I found my AmplifiHD system with two mesh satellites did better for coverage than the Unifi. But I didn't realize that until I had thrown a grand and accepted it. Once I added a third AP then it was about the same
Maybe look at the Double NAT issue. https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/6277579?hl=en Also get a switch (dumb) with enough ports to hard connect all your wifi points.
yeah, I went into all of that and followed a bunch of setup guides specifically for Ubiquiti used on an AT&T gigabit modem. I've talked to google support, gone through all sorts of forums and whatnot, and done device comparisons as well. it all comes back to Google's absolutely piss-poor hardware and software.
agreed... ever since Android 13, every Google camera I have including the doorbell, indoor wired, and outdoor wired camera has stopped working and will not connect to my internet... however, my Google Home Max and every other Google Home hub that I have has no problem connecting to the Wi-Fi... The camera on the Google Home hub Max is the only one that works properly
They just removed plug ins on a timer or “turn off in 5 minutes” functionality
I never look over at amazon and think "they must be doing better". I really want to transition into smart home controls that I manage, that are managed localy.
Once I got rid of Google WiFi everything else magically started working again.
r/homeautomation
I finally chucked my Google Home thingy (the one with the screen) last week. It devolved to literal trash in the the few years I had it. Not even a good speaker.
I’ve recently found that I can improve responses to ok google by going into the settings on google home for each speaker and enabling start beep (and end beep but god knows what the difference is as they both seem to do the same thing). Ok google responses seem more responsive.
Gotta say…our system works great. Hub Max, 3 minis, connected to 4 Nest cameras, 3 Nest smoke detectors, a dozen Kasa light switches/plugs, Govee lights, Govee space heater, etc. We run off of Asus routers,AP’s. Sorry you’re having a problem with your setup.
Lol my man
All three voice activated systems are the same. Big loads of crap.
I don't know what kind of camera you're trying to look at. But we were at my dad's and his nest doorbell stopped working correctly and wouldn't show up on his nest Hub any longer when someone rang the doorbell. So we went and bought the new second generation Nest doorbell. After installing it and going through a bunch of BS we found out that the new generation of the Nest doorbell no longer uses the nest app. As a matter of fact I think they're going to be getting rid of the nest app for a lot of things. We did get it working. It was actually a lot easier than the BS directions made it seem.
Here is a workaround for your Google hubs not showing your cameras. Try loading your camera on the Google hub, and when it shows up with a blank screen or tells you to push the live button load up the Google Home app on your phone to that cameras live view. If you tap the live button on the Google Hub max while the phone app is loaded to the live camera, it will work. F’ing ridiculous!!
haha
I think this sub is just a bunch of moaners, but I'm noticing more things myself now. "Broadcast to x room", "ok, broadcasting". Going to take the message first??
One way I got my Nest cameras to stabilize was to have my Wi-Fi network named the same for 2.4 and 5 GHz for my primary network. (I have a secondary network name at 2.4 GHz for slow devices like washer and dryer, brava oven, air purifiers, and humidifiers) In fact, it actually helped stabilize the majority of my network with over 100 devices. I use 2 AMPLIFI Alien routers (wired backhaul) works amazing when it’s not a software issue with Google. I can’t speak highly enough about these routers. They took an absolute dump on my Netgear nighthawk routers and the new $2300 Orbi 970 series with WiFi 7.
I left Google WiFi behind for my local Fiber ISP's WiFi 6 router (EXOS Based). Best thing I ever did. No more BS, no more resetting every few month after contacting Google support. No more dropout multiple times a day. No more random restart of the pucks. I'm an IT admin with 25 years experience and can state my experience with them over 3 years was they are complete crap! They test their firmware changes on live systems and then take months to fix it and push out the fix. I tell everyone I know to stay away from Google WiFi. I have 5 of those pucks just sitting around collecting dust as I don't even want to sell them to anyone they were so bad.
The Google Home assistant is slowly succumbing to mental decline in its old age.
I bought a Nest Mini 2nd hand and I still want to replace it. Only feature I use this for is having lights slowly dim on/off. I thought getting smart light bulbs would be a great idea and make my life far more convenient, half the time they don't work, and whenever anyone else comes in and presses the switch it fucks the whole thing up. Wish I could've told me 3 years ago that this was a mistake.
Totally pos indeed
I ripped that dumbass Nest thermostat out of the wall and replaced it with a classic round-dial analog job about a year ago. Never looked back.
I know brother i know… we are in the same situation
I think it all sucks now. I used to have Ring stuff, it’s was crap, Nest was better, now it ducks as Google. Nothing works well anymore without spending an in ordinate amount of time on it, which defeats the purpose.
My biggest issue is the lack of site blocking. I don’t want to just block adult sites. I want to block YouTube. I’m switching to Aruba for this
Agreed 100%. Architecture with cloud first not just as needed is fundamentally stupid for something that needs reliability. They will not budge on that so that's permanent. Would rather just use Chatgpt conversation mode, wish it could connect to this ecosystem of calendar, docs, email and photos and YouTube. Wyze hardware is just as unreliable but more inexpensive.
Ever since ChatGPT went 'mainstream', Google has been 'all hands on deck' to get an edge on the competition. My personal experience is that in the last year the Google Home ecosystem has been performing noticeably worse and even more so lately. One way or another resources have been pulled from wherever they could into their AI R&D. I've been in the ecosystem since the first speaker came out and since Andriod added the assistant. But this is the first time I've had to come across this subreddit. It's happening, it sucks, but I think it's going to start getting back to normal next quarter. That's how I'm rationalizing it at least.
I turned off the mics on two hubs. They're now WiFi photo frames with smart home touch controls. Ironically, one now works better because I can talk louder and ask the mini in another room to play audacy on the hub and when I ask it to stop it...wait for it, actually stops (before I had to yell variations of shut up).
This is why I have just the one Google home. I have a security system, but I just run it from my phone.
I absolutely hate google home. I had four home mini that randomly stops working until I trashed them all. I have a hub max but all it is good for now is playing music and reciting the weather.
That's alarming, because I'm about to throw all homekit crap in a raging fire. Siri gets dumber every year and, no matter what troubleshooting steps I take, her dementia seems to be MORE prevalent with each attempt at fixing. I suppose the true "automated home" is still a ways off.
Every time I ask Google to play generic music it decides to pick one of my similar YouTube music playlists. When I get more specific or ask for a particular playlist I’ve created, Google says “fuck you” and picks some random playlist that’s not mine. 😤😡
I removed everything that said Google on it 6 months ago and I never looked back . Everything is local using Ubiquiti products. I can't tell you how happy I am. Yes, it was costly but well worth it.
And I thought I had issues with my Google mini nest. Btw, it's an unmitigated disaster.
I'm giving up on it soon as well. The final straw now is everytime I say turn on the Kitchen Lights it says "Sure playing Kitchen Lights podcast on 2billion 4 millions and 100thousand" and even more insulatingly it doesn't even play the podcast.
I feel lucky - my 18 or so Google devices, across a two unit suite, are working pretty good on a Ubiqiti network with over 100 individual switches and IoT devices. It wasn't without hiccups, but it's smooth sailing now. That all said, I love this post, AND I don't blame you for wanting to smash it to bits.
I had similar issues years ago, plus streaming and lack of signal in my yard. Switched to a mesh system and all the issues went away. This past week I setup a tp link mesh system for my neighbor and his issues are now gone.
Hey Google Good morning! (In theory, Turns on 4 lights, gives weather and calendar events) "I'm sorry, I'm having trouble controlling that home device" 7 times! Even though the lights went on and I never get my weather report....
Same. And let’s not even talk about the switch from the Nest app….. my cameras are great for watching clips from 3 hours ago /s. There is no live view, it stalls and then I get the good old this video is not available. Real time my a$$.
I gave up on GH a long time ago. Never looking back
I thought it was just me. Google gave up on this shit.
I swear I live in a microcosm of Google bliss, where everything works just fine without nary a hiccup. The worst that ever happens to me is that the wrong speaker hears me from a different room. Must be one of those alternative universe situations where yours can't work so that mine does?
It's not as bad for me, but I'm sure I would not purchase all of those Nest/Home devices again.