topic Re: Broadcasting has changed - not our own voices anymore in Speakers and Displays

Broadcasting has changed - not our own voices anymore

robinwillems — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 19:05:08 GMT

We normally Broadcast in our house (7 devices, mini's and Hub and Sonos) and Say "He Google, Broadcast".

"Hey guys dinners ready, come down stairs (but then in Dutch)"

Since a week or two, instead of hearing our own voices, Google tries to translate this and speaks with the assistants voice. This is pretty annoying because he messes up most of the times (maybe we don't speak clearly to him/her).

How can we turn this of?

Re: Broadcasting has changed - not our own voices anymore

MplsCustomer — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 18:47:39 GMT

@robinwillems

We don't use broadcast very often, but we get our own voices. But if I test it, what you're reporting happens to us only if we try to broadcast any of the messages listed under "Broadcast a preset message" in the help topic below. For these messages, Google Assistant seems to broadcast its own message in its own voice, with music. For example, I tried "Hey Google, broadcast it's time for bed". What Google Assistant did was to broadcast "It's time to get some shuteye" in a Google Assistant voice, along with graphics and a little music on the Nest Hub.

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/7531913

I don't know if these preset message are new or not, or whether it might explain what you're encountering.

Re: Broadcasting has changed - not our own voices anymore

robinwillems — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 19:12:01 GMT

Hi @MplsCustomer , i checked but all my personal routines (automations) are disabled. So the should not be the culprit. Also last week it looked like all our broacast were spoken by the Google Voice, even a simple "yes"

Re: Broadcasting has changed - not our own voices anymore

MplsCustomer — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 19:32:54 GMT

@robinwillems

I was not referring to routines or automations, just to the fact that, for us--at least so far--we get our own voice on broadcasts unless we happen to say something like one of the preset messages that Google Nest lists.

However, I've seen a couple of other posts like yours. Maybe this is some sort of change that Google Nest has made, and the updated firmware is not net pushed out to our Nest Hubs. Are your Nest Hubs by any chance on the "Preview Program", with preview versions of the firmware? (Ours are not.)

Re: Broadcasting has changed - not our own voices anymore

robinwillems — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 19:36:33 GMT

Indeed, i was in the preview programs but removed myself from it a couple of days ago. Not sure how long it takes to be removed. This could be it.

Re: Broadcasting has changed - not our own voices anymore

Doemsdagding — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 16:36:08 GMT

I have the exact same (also Dutch) so maybe they changed it specifically for our country (don't know why as I preferred the old)

Re: Broadcasting has changed - not our own voices anymore

robinwillems — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 16:52:09 GMT

Do you have experimental features on or off? I first had it one but turned it off about a week ago (no change since then).

Re: Broadcasting has changed - not our own voices anymore

mkw037 — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 20:55:05 GMT

I read that you need web activity turned on then you can enable the option "Include voice and audio activity." in your Google account.

Not sure why this setting is nested under the requirement of having web activity enabled. I do not want Google tracking my overall web activity, but do want our own voices used during broadcasts. We had our own voices being used for years, now Google changed settings on us and use the assistant's voice. As you mentioned, the assistant gets the words wrong more times than not.

Re: Broadcasting has changed - not our own voices anymore

robinwillems — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 04:34:46 GMT

I have web activities on (and voice/audio), and they always were. To be honest, I have all settings on preferred. Never turned anything off.

Re: Broadcasting has changed - not our own voices anymore

mkw037 — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 22:27:35 GMT

Yeah, I turned on web activity and "Include voice and audio activity" just to see if mine started working and the results are completely inconsistent. We have 7 total speakers in our house. It seems like 50% of the time we hear out own voices during broadcasts, and 50% of the time it's the assistant's voice. So it this a device specific thing?

Re: Broadcasting has changed - not our own voices anymore

clouds — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 18:26:21 GMT

Same thing here, changed for no reason, and Google doesn't seem to care about having an answer to this problem which seems to be reported since 2017.

Re: Broadcasting has changed - not our own voices anymore

clouds — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 18:29:55 GMT

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3703729/whats-going-on-with-google-assistant.html

Re: Broadcasting has changed - not our own voices anymore

realjax — Mon, 16 Oct 2023 13:25:12 GMT

Interesting article. Fortunately home assistant is working on a voice alternative which is coming along nicely. Now just find a way to jailbreak those google home devices and run it from there . And it ll be bye bye google hardware forever.

Re: Broadcasting has changed - not our own voices anymore

robinwillems — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 08:43:37 GMT

I've been using this new "feature" now for the last couple of weeks and i can say that it PRETTY MUCH SUCKS!
Please disable it or give us the possibility to do it ourself, or just kill it with fire ASAP!

Re: Broadcasting has changed - not our own voices anymore

BjörnIse — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 05:54:13 GMT

Same problem here. [rant mode on] I've about had it with Google speakers and hubs, where they constantly change things without any information, and often the changes aren't working well. They'd better spend their time to fix some ongoing problems. [rant mode off]

Re: Broadcasting has changed - not our own voices anymore

DJB31st — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 08:29:37 GMT

We had a broadcast issue for about 6 months earlier in the year, they finally fixed this and broadcast worked for about a month.

Now 9 out of 10 times when we broadcast it doesn't use the recording and instead poorly attempts to replay it using the inbuilt voice, so annoying as its the main feature we use other than music

Re: Broadcasting has changed - not our own voices anymore

clouds — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 14:57:35 GMT

My guess is they'll wind up bricking our devices just like they are bricking Nest security systems. They'll want us to buy all new devices compatible with their AI. The common thread seems to be, just like search results, if it works, Google breaks it. Their phones used to be really good, not anymore. It seems to be company wide dedication to en**bleep**tification.

Re: Broadcasting has changed - not our own voices anymore

GlassFamily — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 11:50:33 GMT

Same problem here. If it as widespread as the last "blinking lights issue" Google did another change without notifying its users. I'm seriously sick of it.

Re: Broadcasting has changed - not our own voices anymore

GlassFamily — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 11:51:52 GMT

I think I'm going to file a complaint with the government. I've had it with Google changing things without notifying its users.

Re: Broadcasting has changed - not our own voices anymore

Saints09 — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 04:16:08 GMT

Same problem here.

Here we go with another scenario where it wasn't broke but Google decided to fix it.