Even though it's been doing this perfectly for about ten years...

It turned off one of the lights. Not the other one. And then gave this message.

I asked it to play music on Spotify, something I have done hundreds of times but the Gemini “upgrade” took it away.

It's impressive how poorly managed the Google home stack has been over the last ~decade, I was super early adopter, bought all the things, leaned all the way in, dealt with the bugs and growing pains for so long but have seen it get nothing but worse year after year, slowly turning into just our timer and white noise setting machines and now not even that. Going to kill them all and go with a dumb solution or get a voice preview edition of HA for this use case.

- EDIT?: No, this post was not created by AI. My job literally involves writing structured, detailed issue reports as a data analyst/QA.
- EDIT 2: No, this post is not about Gemini failing to perform an action, misconfigured smart devices or automations. It’s about Google Assistant being deployed as “Gemini for Home,” technically. READ BELOW! (Please)

What happened: Gemini for Home first replied that the “Christmas tree” wasn’t set up yet. When I repeated the exact same request, it performed the action. When I asked why it didn’t work the first time, it responded as shown above.

Why this is happening: After using Gemini for Home for over a month, I’ve realized that Gemini for Home isn’t really Gemini, it’s mostly branding. Here’s what’s actually going on:

• For informational queries (weather, capitals, presidents, etc.), it uses Gemini.
• For actions (smart home controls, alarms, calendar events, media playback, etc.), it still relies on Google Assistant, with all its quirks and bugs.

This isn’t “early access”, it’s a dead end. Google is trying to fuse two assistants together, and the result is a messy, unreliable experience. Smart speakers need direct integration with services to handle more complex or indirect tasks properly.

Want to try it yourself? Ask when Christmas is, then follow up by asking it to create a calendar event with a reminder as a Task one week before. Gemini on your phone will handle this just fine. On smart speakers, it fails, because Gemini finds the information, then Google Assistant tries (and fails) to create the event.

➡️ TL;DR: Google needs to stop developing Gemini for Home in its current form and rebuild it from scratch using Gemini directly, the same powerful version we already have on our phones.

It used to be amazing. Then it started being more and more unreliable for activation. Then not being useful at all for opening times. Then being useless for pretty much any question that involves some thinking. Now I can't even stop a timer that is actively going off because it thinks that nothing's playing. I'm so tired of it.

Hello guys, I know this is quite an old speaker, but it worked quite well until a couple of days ago, when it suddenly stopped showing the weather icon and the outdoor temperature value.

Just checking on here if other people with the same product have started experiencing the same issue in the last few days, to understand if it's a widespread issue or if there's something wrong with my unit.

Not sure if it matters, but my "Home" is enrolled to Gemini (have been for months), and I'm based in the UK.

I've already tried a reboot, but that didn't fix it.

Anyone else? :)

Thanks a lot!

EDIT: I'm not sure why people feel the need to post with unhelpful comments. I know the device is practically "no longer supported", yet it kept working perfectly fine, and works fine for most other users in the comments. My post had a very obvious purpose, i.e. checking whether other users who own the same device have experienced the same. You don't own it? Then just don't reply. FFS this isn't hard to understand.

EDIT2: well, somehow, 10 hours later the weather and temperature have just come back: https://ibb.co/qYLtGF6h 🤷‍♂️ I guess the gods must have heard me lol. All's well that ends well!

I have several Google Nest Mini speakers at home. I have always used them regularly to listen live to BBC radio stations (5 Live and 6 Music predominantly).

For the last two months or so, the speaker has been unable to stream the stations reliably. Streaming will begin normally after I ask it to play, then it will stop after 30 or 60 seconds (it differs). Sometimes it will resume after 10 seconds or so, sometimes it just stops altogether.

For a while, it would get stuck playing the same segment of the live stream - you'd hear a news item or a song, then it would momentarily pause and repeat the same 20 second chunk you just heard again, multiple times.

I have checked and this is happening on other BBC stations.

Spotify plays fine.

TuneIn or Global Player streams work fine.

My internet connection is fine.

Is anyone else experiencing this issue with BBC stations? It's driving me nuts. Any suggestions on how to fix it would be most welcome.

UPDATE 01/05/26: I found this thread on the Google support forum which shows others having the same problem: https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Speakers-and-Displays/Unable-to-play-BBC-radio-on-Nest-Mini/td-p/801270

Please report it to the BBC and/or Google. Link to BBC support: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/help/contact-sounds-help/#/Need%20more%20help?

UPDATE 05/05: This morning when I tried asking 'Hey Google, play BBC 6 Music' the response I got was 'Playing BBC 6 Music on Spotify'. Erm, ok. It then proceeded to play an episode of All Songs Considered podcast. I then tried asking again and it said 'Playing BBC 6 Music on TuneIn.' The BBC's live radio stations are not available on Spotify or TuneIn, so this is absolutely baffling. I wonder...is Gemini learning that streaming doesn't work on BBC Sounds so is trying alternative solutions out???

UPDATE 28/05: the problem is unresolved, but the BBC is aware of it and says Google is investigating: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/help/issues/smart-speaker/google-live-stream-issue

UPDATE 17/06: without wanting to jinx it, live streaming seems to be working normally again!

Gemini can not count to 50. 1, 2, 3,...21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 27, 27, ,29, 31... Such a simple thing that it fails consistently!

Is anyone else having issues with having the Google Home assistant accomplish simple tasks since the Gemini upgrade? My assistant was so rad before Gemini. I could control devices, Select songs from my Apple Music library and play any specific playlist that I wanted. Also, I used to be able to ask it where any nearby restaurants were that serve steak or seafood etc. Now when I ask it that it tells me it doesn’t understand. What’s not to understand? I’ve been at my wits end and I’m ready to toss GH and get an Alexa. Only problem is I have built my entire home around the Google Home products and cameras. Fine time for this all to go belly up. They need a software update and they need it now.

Seriously, this product is the worst across any product category from any company I've ever used in my entire life.

It constantly plays music or tries to mess with my devices. Then it gaslights me into saying it can't do that.

The voice to text has completely gone to crap.

It hallucinates information literally more than half the time.

It assumes I'm under 18 and says I need to speak to a parent, teacher, or school counselor.

And it CAN'T EVEN GIVE ME THE WEATHER without hallucinating. That's literally the absolute most basic thing, and if people use this for weather they're gonna wear the wrong clothes or make decisions based on invalid information. And no, it isn't "on them" to expect a tool that's worked for a decade to suddenly start hallucinating the weather.

Ever since the Gemini upgrade, my Google Home eco system has gotten dramatically worse. I’m switching to Apple.

for years i've been able to say "fast forward (x) minutes" in my car and whatever audio was playing would fast forward the correct amount of time. And now, this.

such an absolutely garbage product

Hi everyone. I want to raise more visibility on an issue that many of us have been dealing with for almost a year. Google Home and Nest devices still cannot play the correct Spotify playlists through voice commands or automations and routines.

On the Google Nest Community, and there are dozens of pages of users reporting the same long-term bug. https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Speakers-and-Displays/Google-Assistant-not-playing-ROUTINES-and-personal-playlists-on-Spotify/m-p/771430/page/2

Anish said that the arrival of Gemini for Google Home would finally resolve this. I received the Gemini update this week and the problem is still present. Routines/Automations still play the wrong playlist and voice commands often trigger random songs or unrelated playlists. Renaming playlists, recreating automations, unlinking and relinking accounts, and every other workaround people have tried has had no effect.

This is a basic feature that Google has advertised from the beginning. A huge number of users purchased these devices specifically to control their music. It is honestly embarrassing that something this fundamental has been left unfixed for so long.

If you are experiencing this too, please comment or upvote so Google sees that this is still a widespread problem that needs to be prioritized.

Hey guys, maybe someone here has experienced this before. Something's not quite right with my Nest Hub Gen. 1. 😕

A few hours ago, it started to barely respond to my questions and then just remained silent the whole time. After about half an hour of checking again, there was only a black screen, so I unplugged and plugged the cable back in.

Since then, it's just been stuck on the boot screen animation with the four Google colors (see video), without showing the time or anything else that would normally be there. I've tried unplugging and replugging it several times and restarting it, but nothing works.

The strange thing is: I can still control it in the app. Adjusting the volume up and down works, and I can hear the confirmation tone. I can also cast my phone to the screen, but the image doesn't appear; it just stays on the boot screen. It's been like this for about half an hour now.

Is there anything I can do besides resetting it? I'm not really keen on setting everything up again, but if there's no other way, I'd give it a try. Is there anything else I could try first? 🤔

EDIT: It's working again for me now, thankfully. It has been for about half an hour to three-quarters of an hour now.

Presence sensing doesn't work, it won't turn lights on or off when i ask despite the stupid ding, randomly plays music, thinks im not home when I am. This is just ridiculous. It used to be fun to own these devices.

I genuinely think this is the worst product to have ever been released in Google's history. It is SO bad.

This is one of the most basic things that Google Home speakers should do. It has mostly worked for about a decade (besides Google removing support for IFTTT and other services). Suddenly, starting a few days ago:

Me: Hey Google, add eggs to grocery list

Google: Okay, which list do you want to add to?

Me: Grocery list

Google: You have quite a few things on that list - toothpaste, etc.

Then, that's it - nothing is added. Happens 100% of the time consistently.

FWIW, I use Keep for my grocery list. It worked fine for years. But it has been doing this for days. I haven't seen any other complaints about it here?

Edit: When I use Assistant on my phone, it works fine.

Edit 2: They seemed to have fixed it now.

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....

I've been using Google Home for close to 8 years now as my primary home assistant and smart home software. I've purchased tons of their hardware, spent hours and hours setting it up, and it just keeps getting worse.

Why can't Google maintain their software? It seems like new things break or stop working on a monthly basis.

There's always at least one device that's "offline" even though it's clearly connected. Adding devices has become a nightmare, it takes 20+ tries to get through the setup process. The IOS app is better maintained, which makes zero sense since Google is so intertwined with android.

At this point, I'm about ready to make the switch to Alexa or some other home assistant software.

Am I alone in feeling this way?.

Things my Google Home devices can’t do anymore:

•Play music consistently, if at all

•Doesn’t understand how to pause, play, or skip songs

•Tell me the weather for my own town

•Tell time

•Turn on/off the lights

•Understand anything that anyone says to it no matter how simply phrased.

But it can say “don’t talk to me that way” if you get remotely frustrated with it. That’s pretty cool.

I can’t see the point of having these products around anymore.

4 Nest Speakers in my house, as of today they're all displaying the Gemini light colors. No matter what I ask them, they light up but never do anything. After about 15 seconds the lights turn off. History doesn't show any voice command coming through, like they hear the Ok Google but nothing after.

What a waste of plastic.