Google Home app Wifi device usage stats still completely wrong

[michaelsmithers]

Hi,

Has anyone heard any updates on the problematic Google Home Wifi usage stats? Today I tried looking at the family device usage and:

• numbers for the current day showed some variation (which is fair), but...
• numbers for 7 days and 31 days were either obviously wrong or flat (which is also wrong),
• numbers that look like they are varying through a period add up to way more than my ISP is logging for the house,
• numbers are frequently different each time I kill and restart the iOS Google Home app.

Looking at other user's posts, the problem's been around for years now! Seriously Google?

Michael

[LovelyM]

Hello michaelsmithers,

Thanks for reaching out. We're sorry for this experience.

Please share with us the Google Home app version and phone model as well as some of the devices connected to your network. We'd also appreciate it if you could send screenshots of your Wi-Fi usage here.

Looking forward to your response.

Sincerely, 
Lovely

[michaelsmithers]

Ok, here's an example for just one device on our home network.

The Google NEST Wifi 7 day usage is flat at 0.6GB per day, which is clearly wrong. The device is used daily and its downloads actually do vary day by day.

The Google NEST Wifi  30 day usage for the same device shows variations (which makes sense) but the raw numbers are way too high, totalling 1090 GB download. (See ~280 GB on 23 August and ~300GB on 25 August.)

We regularly have over 20 devices on the home network, and looking at the usage recorded by our internet service provider, on 23 August the whole house used only 31 GB and on 25 August only 44 GB. This is much less than the numbers in the 30 day report (for one device) above.

So it's clear that the Google NEST Wifi is wrong, and if you look at postings from other users (and do a Google search), you'll see this problem has been around for over a year. Please fix this.

 

[Juni]

Hi michaelsmithers,

Thanks for the details you’ve shared? Is the Google Home app updated? You can reinstall the Google Home app and observe if it makes a difference. Using another phone can also isolate this. 

Regards,

Juni

[michaelsmithers]

Respectfully, please don't suggest to customers that they resinstall the app - it makes no difference. I just did a fresh install of the app on an iPad, and compared the statistics between the iPad and my iPhone for many devices on our network. The statistics are EXACTLY the same across both Google Home apps and are WRONG. Clearly the stats are managed directly between the Nest router and the cloud, and the iPad or iPhone Google Home app just pulls data from from the cloud.

Michael

[Dan_A]

Hey there,

We appreciate all your efforts. We'd like to take a deeper look into this for you. Please fill out this form with all the needed information, and then let me know once you're done.

Kind regards,

Dan

[Dan_A]

Hey there michaelsmithers,

We haven't received your form. Have you had a chance to fill it out?

Regards,

Dan

[michaelsmithers]

I just completed the form.

[Alex_S]

Hi there,
 

We got your form—thanks for filling it out. Our team will reach out to you via email anytime soon. Please continue the conversation there so the team can further assist you. If you have other questions or concerns aside from this, let me know. 

Warmly,
Alex

[michaelsmithers]

Hi Neil,

I'm sorry but suggesting double NAT is the cause of the wrong Google Wifi statistics makes no sense.

Only a home server is behind the 1st NAT. All other devices are behind the 2nd NAT - Google Nest/Wifi. Consequently the traffic that the Google Wifi router measures should always be less that the total traffic through my ISP. However, as I reported, the Google Nest router reports dramatically higher traffic - much more than the additional traffic to/from the home server & Google Wifi network.

>> as having 2 routers connected will create IP conflicts which will disconnect
>> the network or multiple devices connected to the Google Wifi network.

There are no IP conflicts and no devices disconnecting from the network. The home server is on a fixed IP address behind the 1st NAT and the Google Wifi is on a different IP to the home server. That is all! The 1st NAT serves 192.168.20.x and the 2nd NAT (Google) serves 192.168.86.x. There are no conflicts.

The "Fix Double NAT" link you referenced only talks about slightly higher latency through double NAT, which may affect gaming. It does not suggest there are any other issues with this layout.

>> a double Network Address Translation (NAT) could be the cause of the issue

Please, have your engineers take a look at ALL the reports of poor Google Wifi statistics and investigate the issue properly. To suggest that things like double NAT might be the problem, without data to support this assertion, is disingenuous and potentially misleading.

Regards,
Michael

[michaelsmithers]

>> For this reason, we badly need your help to send the feedback to obtainthe necessary information that our Engineers need to fix the problem.

>> By submitting feedback through the Google Home app, this information goes straight to our engineers and lets them know what kind of things our customers are looking for in a network.

I already did this, as you previously requested, through the Google Home app.


>> We update our firmware up to every six weeks

Sorry, that is not true at all. 🙂  If you look at the publicly available Nest and Wifi firmware version numbers, Google Wifi's last firmware update was September 2022 and the Nest Wifi router was August 2023 (after about 1 year of no updates).

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/13800967 

I check the firmware versions periodically in my Google Wifi and Nest devices and their updates match the public info above. (For example the August update for the Nest Router fixed alot of network instability I was experiencing for over a year with a system at another house.)

Regards,
Michael

[glenviewjeff]

This problem has existed for many years. Google is comfortable in its largely monopolistic and monolithic position. The fact that all of the Google reps either don't know this, or alternately feign ignorance is only further reason to stop buying unsupported Google junk and instead look at smaller competitors' offerings whose companies cannot afford to ignore major defects. Google's various "free" software platforms are just as buggy and poorly supported. Many other Google products have years-long barely acknowledged, unfixed bugs.

[Eric23]

Hello, I have the same problem.

My ISP (xfinity/comcast) usage report claims a massive increase of data usage over the last 3 moths and a huge spike in the last month. This data is not inline with the data shown in the Google Home app. Unfortunately I have no other way then using the app to view the usage of my devices in my network.

As stated above the graphs for the 1 day, 7 day, 30 day usage report are entirely confusing and compared to the actual usage wrong. One example is that my iPhone supposedly downloaded 41.68 GB every day for the last three days in a row. Or I test-downloaded 50 GB on my computer and this download/data usage does not even show up at all.

I need to track the real usage of each of my devices within my network. Are there any other reliable tools that I could use?

I also filled out the form linked above. Thanks

[RichMay]

+1

Starting about 3 months ago my numbers have been woefully below reality (and below what Comcast/Xfinity reports). So far below that it's just not possible. It worked brilliantly before that.

Yes, I update the apps on my iPhone daily. We have a Nest Wifi router and Nest Wifi point.

[Tiesteaz]

Same here. I rarely look at the statistics, and only noticed this today, but this was awfully wrong. Please fix asap, this could be a source of a very funny meme I have in mind already