Google Should Be Ashamed of Themselves For Bricking Your Home Speakers
No matter the branding home assistant Speakers are a popular gadget that’s in many homes by the millions. But if you currently own the Google Home, Mini and Max, you may be in the majority who have non-functioning devices as a result of faulty firmware upgrades. Can you hear me shaking my head?
Here's how the buggy firmware disables your Google Home assistant. Once you update the firmware, the affected device appears to be rebooting normally, displaying all four LED lights. As the process of operation starts to unfold, the device is no longer responsive, and even worse, will not answer any voice commands. Now according to various publications, one of them being Android Police, some users are able to get their Google Home to operate by power cycling the device.
Another fix many users are trying is issue a factory reset on their devices by simply holding down the microphone buttons for approximately 15-seconds on Google Home or press the reset button on the Google Home Mini. But for some consumers, neither solution solved the problem with both devices still not functioning.
The corporate thing to do is issue a statement, which is what Google has done by acknowledging the problem and offering a fix:
" We are aware that a small number of Google Home and Google Home Mini devices are affected by an issue that causes the device to stop working. We have a fix that will prevent the issue from happening and will be rolling it out soon. We are replacing affected devices. "
So what Google is trying to say is anyone that has a Home Speaker that's functioning, there will be a future firmware update that will solve any issue that may be triggering non-operating devices. Now for the bricked devices due to the firmware update, Google is offering a replacement device.
How Google plans on setting up this exchange remains to be seen or when the whole process will begin. But from gathered reports, anyone is eligible for a device exchange regardless if its in-or-out of warranty. Keep yourself abreast of what's happening by going on Google's website. Whatever you do, as a last resort don't spend money on another Home assistant.
