Upcoming Speaker Group changes

[GoogleNestTeam]

Hey everyone, 

Due to a recent legal ruling we’re making some changes to how you set up your devices and the Speaker Group functionality will work moving forward. If you’re using the Speaker Group feature to control the volume in the Google Home app, by voice with the Google Assistant, or directly on your Nest Hub display, you’ll notice a few changes: 

• To adjust volume on your speaker groups, you will need to adjust each speaker individually instead of using the group volume controller. You’ll also no longer be able to change your Speaker Group volume using your phone’s physical volume button. 
• Most Speaker Groups should continue functioning as expected unless you have a speaker group containing other brands of Cast-based devices, like JBL or Lenovo, they need to be on 1.52.272222 or higher Cast firmware version. Check out this article on how to find your device’s firmware version or contact your device maker. 
• A small set of users will need to use the ‘Device Utility app’ (DUA) to complete product installation and updates. You may receive a prompt to download and run DUA, and it will ensure that your device is connected to Wi-Fi and receives the most updated software version. 

We will continue to support our users and work to minimize any additional changes.

Thanks, 

Google Nest team

[Ripper365]

@WarpedTrekker return them if you still can. It has been this way since January and there is no change in sight. Google sucks.

[Drees17]

I have  ALS and can no longer speak understandably.  I use my phone and tablet for everything.   The shame that should accompany such actions are replaced with arrogance and contempt for those who's voices doesn't resonate with power and money.  They turn lies into their own truth. 

[Martyyyy]

Really it's been nearly a year now.

Either pay Sonos a royalty or start issuing refunds to customers.

Surely you can afford to make this a great product again. 

[rodneyaz]

This is so disappointing. I guess I'm returning all 5 nest minis and getting Amazon speakers. Yuk.

[WarpedTrekker]

I decided to keep mine and now have a total of 8 Nest Audio speakers combined into stereo pairs in each room. Living room I have two in front and two in rear, each in a stereo pair. Then I combined them all into "living room speakers", "office speakers", etc. This works pretty good and also created an All Speakers group. Then I can tell google what speakers to play on, or all of them. I keep the volume fairly balanced so I dont have to change it much. But if I do, I change the volume of the pairs of speakers.

Still, we should have a volume control for each group. Google needs to add that feature. Not sure volume of individual or pairs of speakers.

[mtrudel337]

WarpedTrekker ,

Now just say “Hey Google, set volume to 2 on Office Speaker.

Poo poo poo !

This is what this discussion is all about !

[StanIAm]

So, nothing new on this? No work arounds, no plans to get this working again? No plans to get our older Insignia or JBL Google smart speakers to work in speaker groups again? You guys aren’t managing this very well…

[mtrudel337]

The only thing new is that now (since about a month ago) Google respond "You cannot set volume on a group"

So now it specifically tells you it cannot set volume for a group and you have to setup the volume to each speaker individually (VOCALLY !!). You can still change the volume of a group through the app.

While before (between 2022-01 to 2022-09) it did not and people were wandering why only ONE speaker of a group had its volume change.

I dont see how this DOES NOT ENFRINGE COPYWRITE while the vocal command does but this it the way it is.

Seems SONOS invented the expression "Hey Google Set Volume" 😞

Anyway

I solved my problem by creating 9 routines
Hey Google, Vol 1

Hey Google Vol 2
up to

Hey Goolle Vol 9
Each routine sets the volume of all speakers of my group.

It works very well

[mtrudel337]

Personally, I dont think any third party will EVER send their source code to Google anymore, for them to implement in their system.

The risk Google steal their code and directly implement them as theirs is now very risky.
No third party will trust Google now.

[bjhellstrom]

Does the firmware downgrade explain why many users can only cast to one speaker at a time?

[WarpedTrekker]

I have 10 speakers. Put them in pairs. I don't cast but have had no issues playing music from YouTube premium. 

[David3evans]

Is this actually correct? 

I want to buy a few speakers to add to my Google nest hub to use in the same room. Am I correct in understanding that I will not be able to say " ok Google volume down" and all sound from all speakers in the room will not follow this instruction. 

Surely this is a mere standard requirement of a home music system. This cannot be true. Please can someone confirm that this is not the case as I really want to buy more speakers but fear it will be incredibly frustrating to have to speak separately to each speaker when I urgently need to silence the system. I am flabbergasted at this situation if it is true. Is there a plan to solve this issue, if so when can I plan to buy my speakers. 

Thanks

David, 

[kelvin]

@David3evans they follow it individually, but it wont adjust as a speaker group. Its less of a headache if you have never had the feature as it was. I don't notice it anymore, but I definitely was not thrilled and it was annoying when it first was degraded.

Still feel like they should offer a buyback program over this if they aren't going to fix it. Plenty of people want to return these over it and maybe they would be able to gauge cost benefit of paying Sonos. All paths depend on Google caring about those unhappy customers, but as you can see by this forever long thread nobody appears to care. If they do; they likely can't do much because corporations are terrible to work at if you want your voice heard and aren't a big wig.  

[kelvin]

@David3evans I should add you can pause all speakers at once and resume, this is just about volume control so if your worry is a full silence that shouldn't be an issue for you. 

[tommykat1]

@David3evans and @kelvin, you can easily create a routine to adjust volumes of all speakers to a percentage and give it a name, such as "Set speakers to 80%." Thus, creating routines for 10%, 20%, 30%, etc. is just as easy.

You would say, "Hey Google, set speakers to 30%," and all speakers in the routine will follow the command, in any and all groups.

Note, I am using an Android Galaxy phone. I don't know how an iPhone will respond.

[mtrudel337]

Works the same on Iphone

I created the folowing routines
Hey Google, set Speakers to 20%

Which is configure to set volumne to 20% to 2 individual device (not the group but each in the group)

And have the same for 30%, 40% etc as Tommykat1 mentionned

It gives the original functionality back

[DevanteWeary]

Everyone is talking about setting volumes but I can't even get it to cast to a group.

For instance, I say "Hey Google cast to home speakers" and it used to play the music from my phone to the home speakers group.

Now it doesn't do anything.

Am I missing something or was that part of the lawsuit as well?

[mtrudel337]

Personally I say

Hey Google, Play Music On "Cuisine"

"Cuisine" beeing a group of 2 speakers

This has always worked and still works

[snapperheadjoe]

Like usual the monkeys at Google fix one thing and break twenty other things.  The new Google home preview lets you control group volumes again (it only took them 3 years to fix it!) and it does a fairly good job however they broke the ability to cast to groups of speakers with voice.  This has been working well until this week.  Last night I said "Hey G play music by Sting from my library on Living Area audio group" (a four speaker group across three rooms).  Even after multiple attempts from different devices in different rooms the Idiot! I mean Google would only play Sting on whichever speaker I was speaking to even though it responded with "Playing Music by Sting from your library on Living Area"... then it doesn't do it.  Morons!

Seriously Google has ZERO QA, they must have fired everyone in that department, their developers make a change and break all kinds of stuff, then they make another change to fix all the things they broke in the last change and break even more stuff.  They push out these changes to the devices without ever testing them.   The thought is "why should we test when the world is our test bed"!

For most of us it isn't practical to move to another solution because we are so invested.  In my home I have Google and Alexa devices in every room so when one system is being an idiot I simply use the other one until they get their junk working again.  Guess which one I am using now, Alexa.

[jbrucks]

I am on the dog food version, it works just fine for me. 

Try disabling or deleting the routine, delete the speaker group. Then create a new speaker group re-enable the routine or create a new routine wait 5 minutes and try again. I find that sometimes if I change the name of the speaker group it takes a few minutes for that change to propagate to all of the involved smart devices.

[snapperheadjoe]

I've tried that many times, sometimes it works most times it doesn't.  I simply to wait for Google to unbreak what they have broken.  This is why I have Alexa and Google Home in every room, I simply hop over to the other solution when one is active stupidly.  My complete Audio library is replicated in YT music and iBroadcast so I can stream all my music (25k songs) from with Alexa or Google Home using voice or the respective assistant Apps.  All my Samsung SmartThings devices are fully controllable from Alexa or Google Home as well so most of the Google nonsense doesn't impact me as badly.  I feel for others that are locked into Google and are left hanging after spending thousands of dollars on their hardware with no way out.

[Komodo812]

Hey @snapperheadjoe , do you use an iPhone or an Android? 

[jbrucks]

Have you ever tried saying, "Hey Google sync my devices."

If any of the devices are not set up correctly it will generally let you know which ones.

[snapperheadjoe]

I am Samsung Android all the way don't own a single apple device.  

[snapperheadjoe]

@jbrucks I'll look into that command, that is one I've never heard of.  I love these forums as everyone shares information and even long time users (like me) can learn something new.

[Komodo812]

@snapperheadjoe, Where is the volume adjustment for all the speakers?

[snapperheadjoe]

You must be running the preview version of Google Home.  The new interface makes group volume control very easy.  It surfaces a MaterialU pill box at the bottom of the app any time you are casting any media to any device in your home.  From there you have full control of the media as well as group volume control.

You still can't use your voice to control group volume, as we all know Sonos has a patent on the human voice controlling group volume  (it's ok for monkeys to do it;)  but only if you are doing it to Google devices.

Hey Sonos I can still control group volume on all my Alexa devices when are you going to sue Amazon and Apple?  We need to make sure group volume control is equally miserable for everyone.  Why innovative when you can just sue companies to make a buck.

[JohnR]

@DevanteWeary this happened with my Integra DRX receiver with built-in Chromecast. the entire group stopped working as part of the speaker group changes. I had to remove that receiver from the group in order to get the group to play anything. I think it's because the Chromecast version has to be updated but since it's embedded the update gets released by Integra/Onkyo instead of google. 🤬

[cscooper2000]

Has anyone started a class action suit against Google, so some lawyers can get our money back for all the speakers we bought that no longer do what they were advertised to do?  Sure, a class action won't put money back in my pocket, but it will send a strong message to Google (and other companies that are too big to care).

[Neuxufbfidjrbru]

@cscooper2000I've been wondering the same thing. I would imagine that a class action suit over this is inevitable.

[ShaneAN]

Same same. I'd join the class.  I have 9 nest/home speakers, two hubs, and multiple chromecasts which no longer play music in sync and which I have not been controlled together as advertised now since Google lost the suit with Sonos and rather than pay, simply screwed the customers by stripping out the functionality. 

[tommykat1]

@ShaneAN, this was finally rectified in April 2022, and debugged through summer. Press and hold the "Home" button and the Google Assistant will open. Type or say "Cast Settings," and the new cast screen will open, allowing you to cast to individual speakers or groups.  (Note: you can also say "Cast my phone" and the Assistant will explain the process.)

The Google Home app is now only used to set up your speakers, groups and control individual volume levels. In other words, you need two apps to do the job that one used to do. It's a slight hassle, but an adequate solution. Your phone's volume up/down buttons control the master volume of all speakers in a group.

What's a shame is the method is unintuitive and there are no published instructions that I've seen so far. For me, a Google search yields the old method that no longer functions. (Ironic, eh?)

[ShaneAN]

@tommykat1 This method relies on a phone to cast / set master volume changes. It does not correct the overall issue at hand -- which is hands free volume changes of all linked speakers without having to touch a phone / secondary device - doing so by voice. 

[Nang1]

please allow me How did we get here? We bought name.  What platform is it? 

[EricaH121]

Wow, this is **bleep**ed up. I'm going to have to manually and individually adjust the volume of 8 speakers in 6 rooms of my house? Where do I apply for the rebates for my 6 Nest Audios and 2 Home Minis?

[Komodo812]

Yeah. It's really such bull**bleep**. And it just keeps getting worse and worse... 

[Scooter-Trash]

I recently stood up and Alexa ecosystem and I'm pleasantly surprised. 1st, much of the latency I attributed to the 3p vendor systems seems to be Google! Alexa is very snappy.  Some of my devices only had on/off but Alexa offers speed or brightness controls.  

That said, Alexa does not have support for my uploaded music anymore and their screensaver is total crap that is packaged with a photo application that is worse.  

So now I'm using two systems- one two display photos on my TVs while streaming music. The second one does home automation.

[Nestsuitefails]

Likely due to SONOS -

Save the grief - just go with Sonos.

[mMark0v]

Broken the whole setup in my smart house doing this. Couldn't be more disappointed. 

You are losing ground Google. No brainer ChatGPT will blow you away any sooner like other competitors in any other area. 👎👎

[Scooter-Trash]

I quit Alexa (6yrs ago)  because they stopped playing my uploaded music. I recently tried it again & was blown away by the speed it executes! Also several devices that only had on/off functionally had their speed/brightness settings. When Google bricks my Lenovo devices, I'll probably be gone!

[Andybrad]

The big question is will sonos go after Amazon?

[KoldSteel]

@Andybrad funny because I was literally just thinking that. There's no reason for them not to. Sonos also stated in the past that it's not out of the question. I also doubt Amazon would pay Sonos for something so silly. 

[Scooter-Trash]

Good question. I think first you have to answer "how many Sonos devices are sold on the Amazon platform?"  I don't want to bite the hand that feeds them.