r/googlehome

Since changing to Gemini my Google home only turns on the correct light about 10% of the time. Today it got even worse, trying to turn on my bedroom light while I am in my bedroom right next to the speaker

Hey Google, turn on the light - makes the sound, but nothing happens

again.. Hey Google turn on the light - makes the noise again but nothing

Hey Google, which light did you turn on? - "To see your history you need to upgrade to Home Premium....." then it reads out a URL.

So basically it fails doing one of the most basic things that everyone would expect it to do, and then expects you to pay extra? It's just a joke now.

I recently changed my router name and since trying to reset my Google Home Nest its freaked completely out. Anyone got any help for me?

In trying to fix it so far I have:

-cleared the cache from my Google Home App

-factory reset my Google Home Nest

Now when I try to add it, to the app it is now recognising that the Nest is there, but it keeps saying 'this device was previously set up by a different user. Please factory reset the device'

I've factory reset multiple times now and still nothing.

It is promoted as having "room-filling sound". In actuality, the audio quality is, to my ears, hollow and incipid, regardless it is on a hard or a soft surface, against a wall or not, "EQ" balanced or not.

It is promoted as being able to connect to external Bluetooth speakers. It cannot. The help file built into the Google Home app provides step-by-step instructions that are relevant for the former generation but do not exist for this new speaker.

The Gemini voice recognition is remarkably poor, often mishearing simple instructions. Weirdly, everything else I use Gemini voice recognition on is a close-to-100% success.

IMO the development and marketing teams behind this janky, dishonest, broken piece of crap should be ashamed. They owe me my $99 back and hours of my time trying to make this device work as advertised.

I used to use the google assistant to control my smart lights etc.

I switched to using Gemini, and I cannot believe how bad it is. Surely I'm doing something wrong.

Can someone please explain to me why saying, "Hey Google", and asking it to turn on my office lights, Gemini says "Sure turning on your office lights", then 40 seconds later I say "Hey Google, turn off my office lights" he says "I am an AI agent, I cannot access your google home, you need to talk to your google assistant to do that"....

What? You just turned them on 40 seconds ago.

So I close the chat, open it again and the same happens, close the chat, "Hey Google, turn off my office lights"

"OK, turning off your office lights"

....?????

I just spent a fortune on Google Nest devices to put across my house, please god don't tell me this is the absolute state of Google Home in 2026.

Just says "Looking for devices" followed by "No devices available"

Spotify still works ok on the same phone & settings

This is on Android 17 (I don't know if caused by Android 17)

Anyone else?

I purchased the new speaker and was looking forward to being able to be like “Hey Google, what venue am i going to for my concert on the 12th”. or like “How much did i pay for my phone last year” and it’s just pulling from my emails. Just like gemini does. I purchased this because it was advertised to be gemini but it’s like a sanded off version of gemini.

So we have a few Google nest hubs around the house and my kids (2 and 5) have always loved asking google silly questions. Their favorite is: "what sounds does X (animal) make?"

But since a few weeks, maybe months, it lost most of the sounds it had - all of the funny ones at least. And if you ask something it doesn't know, it'll just repeat the previous question. Eg. I asked it to turn the sound up, it did. My son asked "what sound does a parrot make?" And it just turned the sound up more. When he repeated it, again increased the sound. Until I asked him an animal it knew and it gave the the animal sound.

Is this just Google pushing us to use Gemini? Or is it just a regular bug that will get solved sometime in the future? Guess I'll find out soon enough....

few weeks ago i unplugged my nest mini to move it to another wall port to untangle some wires, however it got disconnected from the app and now its just always running into issues

first it won’t recognise my own internet (wifi extension - it worked before)

and when it does connect to the other internet it just says connection failure or my nest mini isn’t available (and it’s not because it’s too far away, i’ve kept it in the same spot)

i’ve tried resetting the nest mini and removing it from the google home app

i’ve also deleted and reinstalled the app several times

can someone please help me figure out what the issue is 🥲

I have older chromecast (most likely the 2018 variant) which i cannot connect anymore since google home removed the find device functionality and replaces it with fixed lsit of devices. Issue is that any of the chromecasts listed there does not find my chromecast and I cannot connect that anymore. What can i do to get it connected again?

Is there a way to go back to the normal Google Assistant? I enrolled in Gemini, not understanding what was happening and now my nest speakers are so inconsistent on what they can and can’t do and has lost the ability for most of the tasks I use it for, has anyone found a way to go back to the normal Google Assistant it seems to be a widespread frustration that Google is ignoring because they assume everybody wants AI even if it means making a product worse. The most frustrating part is that it’s software not hardware and it seems like they are blocking the ability to do what the speakers are capable of.

I saw a lot of posts saying that Gemini is "hit or miss," but from what I've experienced, it's mostly a miss.

The new assistant constantly misunderstands what I'm saying. It feels like I have to phrase everything in a very specific way just for it to understand a simple command. The previous assistant didn't have this problem, which is why I don't understand why it was replaced when there was nothing wrong with it.

One example is the weather. If I ask for today's weather, it'll tell me something like, "The high is 80 degrees," but it won't mention the low temperature. The old assistant used to give a more complete weather report without me having to ask follow-up questions.

Another issue is turning off my Google Home display. I used to be able to simply say, "Screen off," and it would immediately turn the screen black. Now I have to repeat myself over and over—sometimes 10 times—and instead it'll respond with something completely unrelated like, "Turning off Stephanie's bedroom TV." That's not even what I asked. It often substitutes different words for what I actually said, which makes using it incredibly frustrating.

The same thing happens with my smart lights. I'll say, "Turn on the bedroom lights," but instead of turning on just those lights, it'll turn on all seven of the lights connected to my home. Again, it either doesn't hear me correctly or misunderstands the command.

Overall, the new assistant feels far less reliable than the old one. I know I'm relying on technology, but that's exactly why I expect it to work consistently. Smart home devices are supposed to make life more convenient, not require me to repeat myself or fight with them every time I want to do something simple.

So when we moved everything over to gemini in google home the only everyday issue my family had is that it no longer sent Google Maps directions to our phones. It's now July and it still doesn't do that. Does anyone know why this feature which seems so basic has been disabled?

I'm having a weird issue lately where my automations to turn the A/C on and off based on my thermostat indoor temperature aren't triggering unless I open the app or refresh my display hub. They've gone from triggering 99% of the time to triggering maybe 10% of the time in the last few weeks. I've tried all of the common sense stuff a Google search revealed like making sure the app is allowed to run in the background and turning off "manage app if unused". It's getting really frustrating and I'd really appreciate any advice people can give me. Thank you in advance.