Slow response when using Google Home to control Philips Hue devices

[Bernt]

(I have also reported this from within the Google Home app)

Problem: In a Google Nest network, all Phillips Hue devices are responding very slowly (10 seconds or so) through Google Home a day or two after either restarting the network or performing a factory reset of the network. The network performance is good in other respetcs.The problem occurs both with speech commands and by using in the Google Home app on the phone. After a restart of the network it works as expected for some hours or a couple of days.

I realize others have reported similar issues, but since I have done extensive testing the last month I think it is worth reporting a summary of my results, which may be of help when fixing this issue. I just mention here what seems significant, but can report more details if nescessary. 

1. Even though Hue products slow down, other smart devices do not slow down when using Google Home to control them (in my case several power plugs from Deltaco and a couple of heat pumps). The problem is specifically related to Philips Hue.
2. Google home commands to Philips Hue devices produce a 10 sec. delay on the wifi and also from internet, outside the wifi. BUT: Philips Hue devices respond immediately when being controlled from the Philips Hue app both from the internet and from inside the wifi. This excludes a number of possible errors with radio channel congestion and routing, I guess.
3. Restarting the Philips Hue bridge has no effect, neither has reconnecting Philips Hue to Google Home. This would suggest that the problem does not originate in the bridge. 
4. I have tested a number of physical setups of the Philips Hue bridge without any change. I have connected it to a Google wifi ethernet port and to the Nest Wifi ethernet port. It makes no difference. 
5. A very surprising discovery (or maybe not so surprising): When changing DNS setup and confirming it in Google Home, the Philips Hue devices will in many cases start to respond quickly. I guess the network is restarted when changing DNS? According to my “research” the specific DNS setting chosen does not matter much in this case.  

Some more details which I doubt have any significance, due to point 2 above: My home network consist of a Nest Wifi router, a Nest wifi point, and three Google wifi pucks connected by switches and cable to the router.

I greatly appreciate Google Home, but would really like the control of Philips Hue devices to be as smooth and immediate as expected in a modern network! 

[Ironwoods]

I have also submitted the form.

[AbigailF]

Hi again folks,

Thanks for taking the time to fill out the form. Our senior specialists will be reaching out via email so keep an eye out. I'll lock this thread in 24 hours. You're free to create a new thread if you have a new concern. We'll be here to help you out.

Best,
Abi

[bck17]

Will you post any solution or outcome from support specialists engaging on this or just close the thread without resolution?

[AbigailF]

Hello bck17,

We won’t be able to provide a one-answer solution for this issue for now as we still need more data to identify the root cause. Since we have a lot of factors to consider, we need to escalate each case to our senior specialists so we can dig deeper about what’s going on. Once we have more details to share, we’ll definitely let our Community members know. 

Cheers,
Abi

[AbigailF]

Hey everyone,

We haven't heard from you in a while so we'll be locking this thread if there is no update within 24 hours. If you have any new issues, updates or just a discussion topic, feel free to start a new thread in the Community.

Regards, 
Abi

[bck17]

I was contacted by two levels of Google technical support and after very basic functional checking at the first level, escalation to the second level concluded that since the lights do go on and off, although with long delay, contact Philips for further assistance.

[MrGug]

Somewhat same thing here. After the first contact basically asking to redo my whole config, I asked for a second opinion, I was told to tweak my netowk because I "probably" have too many devices. The fact that this issue started happening about the same time as the Matter-enabled software updates started to be implemented does not seem to be taken into account. I've been working in I.T. for many years and this is usually the things support say to a customer to close the ticket as quickly as possible, no to do a real investigation to correct the problem. A bit disapointed.

[AbigailF]

Hello everyone,

Thanks for updating us. Please seek assistance from Philips first then get back to the Google support team with the results. When you reply back to our Google support team’s email, your case will be re-opened. Any information you provide them regarding the troubleshooting that you did with Philips greatly helps with isolating the issue further. Let me know if you have any clarifications so I can help you out.
 

Thanks,

Abi

[JJ86]

I have also the exact same problem. And I also did fill out the form. 

[AbigailF]

Hi folks,

Appreciate you updating us, @JJ86.
To those that still have issues, feel free to fill out the form I linked above so we can help you. If you have any questions, let us know.

Cheers,
Abi

[AbigailF]

Hey there, 

It's me again. Just checking in if anyone still needs assistance with the form. We'll wait for your update.

Best, 
Abi

[JJ86]

It looks like for the bast tow days it has been working perfectly fine. as before the delay started. 

If it keeps working like this , then the problem has been fixed.

Good job. Thanks a lot. 

[AbigailF]

Hello JJ86,

I'm happy to hear that it has improved. We'll keep this thread open for a few days to give you time to reply to us in case anything changes. Feel free to reply with any questions or clarifications you may have, we'll be here to help out.

Regards,
Abi

[KoldSteel]

It has been working perfectly fine since Saturday for me as well! What an annoying thing that was. So good to have my commands go through right away again. 

[KoldSteel]

Unfortunately I spoke too soon. This morning it is now broken again with delay on Google Home app and Voice Commands. Philips hue app has no delay which is the same as before.

[AbigailF]

Hey KoldSteel,

Appreciate the update. I'm sorry to hear that the issue occurred again. I saw that you already sent an email to our Google support team. They're currently working on your case and you should get an email from them shortly.

Thanks,
Abi

[AbigailF]

Hello again everyone,

Checking back in should you still have some questions here. Let us know by replying to this thread. 

Best, 
Abi

[AbigailF]

Hi folks,

Just one quick final check in here since activity has slowed down. We'll be locking the thread in the next 24 hours, but if you still need help, I would be happy to keep it open. If there's more we can do, just let me know.

Regards,
Abi

[MrGug]

Hi Abi,

I've had fewer occurences of the issue, it happened only 1 time last week. Hope this is a sign that a permanent fix is being applied.

On a side note, instead of telling me to reset everything, redo my whole setup and call Phillips if it does not work (very frustrating answer), when support reached out to me via email I would have appreciated being told that you are aware of the issue, that you are working on a fix and keeping me posted on the status.

Thanks

[AbigailF]

Hello MrGug,
 

Thanks for the update. I’m happy to hear that the situation has gotten better. We appreciate your feedback and we are already well aware of the issue. Rest assured that we’re working on finding a solution. Let’s monitor it for now and see how it goes. I’ll keep this thread open for a few more days to give you time to reply. Appreciate your patience and understanding on this.

Cheers,
Abi

[MrGug]

Hi Abi,
Just a follow-up, the problem has reappeared, I had to restart my network every morning since my last post.
Thanks

[bck17]

After a period of maybe a week or two with no problems, the long delay in turning lights off and on has returned for me too. As before, control through Hue and a competing voice assistant/hub works fine. The only difference now is unlinking and then re-linking the Hue integration no longer corrects the problem, even temporarily.

[JJ86]

Today as from now. Everything is back to before, slow response from home app. It's frost training.. same problem 

[KoldSteel]

@AbigailF The situation has changed a bit since my last post. Sometimes it is working very quickly without any delays and other times it has the delay. This is without restarting the network or rebooting anything. Speaking with Philips hue as advised by Google Support, they said since everything is working on the Philips hue app that there is not much they could do. They also said that I could try to reset the entire Philips hue system which I have not done because it is very invasive and I'm not convinced it will do anything to solve the problem permanently. 

[iLookLikeElvis]

Situation is the same for me as well - lag still comes and goes.

I did receive an email from a developer after filling out that form but I was just asked to do all the things all of us on this thread have already described trying - reboots, resets, reinstallations, etc. And if I didn't respond in a certain amount of time they'd close my ticket. I didn't even bother replying, and just gave up in frustration (which is why I haven't been responding to this thread lately). It isn't easy for everyone to just reset everything on a time limit. People work from home, other family members need the network for school or whatever.

Alexa works fine - it never lags. Nor does the Hue app on any of my devices (as I've already said). This is a Google problem. 

[iLookLikeElvis]

I keep waiting for a fix, or even an acknowledgment. I’ve submitted two support requests in the Homs app (with logs etc). Nothing, Amazon and Apple looking increasingly like they’ll be supplying my future Wi-Fi/home automation hardware and phones.

[KoldSteel]

My Philips hue is also very very very slow when controlling via voice or Google home app. Interesting discovery about this. Is that controlling through the Philips hue app works instantly with no delays. This tells me that it's an issue with the Google Home integration and that there must be something broken down or not functioning within it. If I'm in the middle of the room and ask Google to turn the light on, I can walk three times to the switch before Google turns on the lights. 

I also have removed Phillips Hue from Google home and added it again and it did not fix the issue. Just left me frustrated cuz I had to add all the lights to my routines again. 

Google please address this issue with Philips Hue!!

[maiello3fl]

It seems with everyone having the same issues Google would do something other than repeatedly telling people to try something that doesn’t work over and over again.  Meanwhile my Alexa is flawless controlling the Hue bridge. I was in the process of moving to Google

home. The brakes are on that process… Frustrating!

[KoldSteel]

Make sure to fill out the form that Abi has shared above. (also see below) 

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE FORM

[OliverJAsh]

I have also filled out the form.

[Matt_HGR]

Form filled out too.

Restarting my nest WiFi network sorts the issue for around 12 hours and then it is back again. Like many of you in the forum, it did appear fix itself a few weeks ago before going right back to how it is now.

Hue app and dial button are immediate. Alexa is immediate. Just Google ecosystem that struggles until the network is restarted.

Bizarre.

[Matt_HGR]

Update:

Google team offered to RMA my nest AP as the issue seemed to follow this. (Unplugging the additional point for a week gave me no issues except for spotty WiFi signal obviously)

After plugging in the new AP, the issue has returned mere days after swapping out. We are officially back to square 1.

I've changed DNS for IPv4 and IPv6 to Google ones as per their recommendation but nope. No joy.

Has anyone found workarounds or have we all Decided daily network restarts are fine?

[MrGug]

I've had very few glitches in the last few months. At least it has returned to the normal number of glitches I'm used to have with my wifi. The daily network restarts are no longer an issue, at least for now. 

[bck17]

While occasionaly slow to respond, things seem much improved over the past 6-8 weeks or so, especially with the new Home app. We also have Nest Wifi  with three points, but even during the worst of it (5 sec+ delays), things worked as expected via the Hue app or Homekit with Siri. 

[iLookLikeElvis]

When the new Home app was released (for me) it seemed like the lag had improve. But now I'm back to the usual pattern: no lag for a day or two, then it gets laggy again. Unlinking and relinking my Hue lights from the Home app will "work" for a while. I did that last night and no lag for a few hours. Today, lag is back.

Maddening.

[bck17]

I'm having the same experience now with Google Home now. It works off and on.

Everything continues to work well with direct control from the Hue App as well as with HomeKit and Siri. When considered with other long-standing software issues with Nest Hubs, issues with various Google Mesh networking product lines, the early obsolesce of hardware products like Secure and other things, we've started a long slow migration to HomeKit which at least offers more choice in products and seems to work reliability with Hue. It'll take a while with cameras, doorbell, Google TV, security system etc, but we'll get there. Making changes as they drop support for individual products or neglect to correct problems we can't live with (such as Hue control). Some of these issues have been persistent for years.

[Sean_A]

I had this problem months ago and nobody from google was willing to help apart from the usual ‘try this’ ‘reset that’ and then you get ‘we know about this issue and working on a fix’ never happens and then stuck with faulty software/poor products. So purchased Apple HomePods 2 week ago to replace the Google speakers and everything is working perfect, so everything on the hue side must be fine.

[JDUBIEL595]

7 months and still no solution? It’s late July of 2023 and I’m still having this issue? What is going on to solve this problem. This doesn’t feel like a hues issue as it works fine in its native app? Two multi billion dollar companies can’t communicate to make two of their biggest devices/softwares work together? 

[Bjarne66]

I have the same problem with slow response times when using Google Home app and also Google Assistant.

However the Hue app is slow on my phone too when I change the phone connection from WiFi to cellular data.

Could it be that the problem in fact is poor/slow integration from Philips Hue internet equipment to our routers on the WAN side since response seems fine from the Hue app when connected to LAN through WiFi?

For the above to be the point of failure it would imply that Google connects to the Philips Hue hub through internet WAN and not WiFi on our LAN.

Please comment on this.

[Bjarne66]

I have the same problem with slow response times when using Google Home app and also Google Assistant.

However the Hue app is slow on my phone too when I change the phone connection from WiFi to cellular data.

Could it be that the problem in fact is poor/slow integration from Philips Hue internet equipment to our routers on the WAN side since response seems fine from the Hue app when connected to LAN through WiFi?

For the above to be the point of failure it would imply that Google connects to the Philips Hue hub through internet WAN and not WiFi on our LAN.

Please comment on this.