Google Home slow to respond

[Axon54]

Over the last 2 weeks my Google Home is very slow to respond. It sits and the lights spin after a command and many times it does not execute the command. Also, when I tell it to play a radio station it plays it on a nest speaker in another room. I have rebooted it by unplugging several times plus 2 factory resets and no change.

[Princesss · Accepted solution]

Hi everyone,

Sorry to hear about the slow responses from your Google Nest speakers. If you're currently experiencing this, here are some things you should check first:

• Check the distance of the Nest speaker-- it should be within range from the router or network preferably within 15-20 feet for a good and stable connection.
• Make sure that there are no other devices or appliances that may interfere with the connection. For example: a TV, microwave oven, or other electronic device.

Once you've checked on those, give these troubleshooting steps a try:

1. Unplug your Google Nest speaker and plug it back in after a few minutes. It may also be helpful to unplug your router to refresh its network settings and to avoid congestion on the network.
2. If that doesn't do the trick, perform a complete reset and follow the prompts to set up.

If you don't see improvement after performing the steps above, please give us a call or chat via this link: https://bit.ly/3adTfGB. We'll be happy to look into this further!

Best,

Princess

[hvigor]

Same issue with latency and flakiness that you all have experienced. Any ideas how we should try to get Google's attention here?   At a minimum, the should address awareness of the issue publicly.

[Axon54]

I wish I had an answer to being ignored. I was told I could speak to a supervisor on live chat. That is my next step. Perhaps we all need to do that?

[Gap]

Every time I receive a notice that somebody has posted in this string I am hopeful that a resolution has been found. I continue to test and troubleshoot where possible. My next step is to find another router to replace mine to start at that level. Then maybe build the system from the ground up again with all my smart devices in the house.

[Axon54]

Tried that already

[SweatyPalms]

I have no idea why, but mine have started working the way they're supposed to now. The only thing I've done is reboot my network (Google WiFi) and modem. I know that's been tried by many and is not a solution. Heck, I'm not even sure that it started working better after that. I just know that I did the reboot earlier in the week, and noticed yesterday that everything was functioning great again. 

[Gap]

Thanks for the update. It's encouraging to see that it's working again for someone. Let us know if there are any changes.

[GoogleAddictVa]

Google started Rolling Out Fuschia OS to Google Nest Hub displays in the middle of 2021. This is a completely new operating system that replaces Cast OS. (Yes, I thought they were using Android, but apparently not) Fuschia was supposed to be an invisible update with no new changes to the user. However, here we all are with some laggy issues. I can reboot everything and it'll work for a day or two, but ultimately it'll fall behind again.

[Sphynxmama]

Would this still affect those of us who don’t have hubs or google homes, just nest minis?

[Stephaxoxo]

Same issue here with my Nest Hub.  Clearly not an isolated issue.

[gandugad]

After weeks/month -- time to get an Alexa 

[DanSchlim]

I literally started looking at them today

[TwiggyToots]

sorry if someone already posted this, but I had same thing as everyone and mine is now just working like it used to.  The only thing that was different with mine is that a few days ago Home would randomly talk back to me in a foreign (Asian) language, and I was unsure why and still am unsure why.  Anyway, I read about someone else who removed the extra language from google Home and it fixed it for them.  This is because Home is listening for two different languages instead of just one, so it takes time for it to figure out which language and then do the command for you.  I'm not sure how some Asian language was added to my Home, but I went in and removed it and my Home is fixed!  It's snappy again.  Here is the text from the Reddit page, don't know if URLS are allowed, but search for this text if you want to look at it  https://www.reddit.com/r/googlehome/comments/bdjo5j/psa_if_your_home_has_been_consistently_slow_to/ 

 Removing the language isn't exactly straight forward, so if you'd like to remove a language go to the Google Home app:

• Click the 4th tab at the bottom

• Click Settings under General Settings

• Click the Assistant tab, click Languages

• There are no delete or edit buttons on this list, but click on the second language, and change it to None

[DanSchlim]

I only have English in mine.  It actually started working a little bit better the other day. Maybe there is an update pushed out.

Unfortunately I think I may end up getting rid of all of my Google speakers. I use Amazon music to cast music to all the speakers at one time in a group. That worked flawlessly for a very long time but about a month or two ago maybe a little bit longer it started skipping a lot and cutting in and out.  If I cast to just one speaker it seems to work okay but when casting to everything in my house at one time when hosting a party it doesn't work and it's super annoying. I've also noticed that it doesn't always move on to the next song anymore. I'm very disappointed overall with the Google speakers for the last 6 months or so

[CommDoc]

I have the same issue as everyone else, but with a slight difference. Mine has been slow for months, but it is just on the initial response. "What time is it?" takes 10 to 15 seconds to get a response. If I immediately follow up with a second or third question or command, those responses are quick. I have tried all the fixes suggested above (resets, 5g, one language, etc.) and after a couple days the delays come back. As you all are, I'm extremely frustrated and considering leaving the Google-verse.

[Mipo1977]

Exactly the same here. The first response takes 10 to 15 seconds until the device prints my command and reacts. After the first command every following ist answered almost immediately.

When about one to five minutes pass, everything starts from the beginning.

This behavior started several month ago on my home minis gen 1 and my home gen 1. The nest audio works fine... the new nest hub gen 2 also responds slow. The older hub gen 1 responds immediately. 

[pksjc]

Yes, mine is only on the first response too.  I'm wondering if they updated the algorithm to save cloud resources and they need to initiate a new secure connection to the cloud for the first question you ask it.  If all the subsequent queries are fast, it kind of points to an initial connection routine.  A new SSL handshake, authentication, etc before it can respond.  Just guessing while I wait for Google to fix it....

[GoogleAddictVa]

It's not your network settings. It's an issue with the device itself. Try turning off the lights with your phone through your mobile network provider. The response time is almost instant. That alone eliminates any network setting s. My theory remains, this is Google's way of forcing users to update their old hardware. There will not be a fix.

[CommDoc]

GoogleAddictVA, good thinking. Really creative process of elimination. But for me, at least, using phone has always been instant even using my LAN. The mini delays at all initial requests, even asking the time or it's volume level. Do you know if there are any mini responses handled locally (i.e., volume level, time, etc.)?

[ResetElonex]

An experiment I'm trying now is to add the following to my DNSmasq configuration;

server=/embeddedassistant.googleapis.com/#
address=/embeddedassistant.googleapis.com/::

My theory is that my Google Home Max does a IPv6 DNS lookup, and tries to reach it, until it times out because my internal network is IPv4 only.  After that it tries the IPv4 address for embeddedassistant[.]googleapis[.]com, which succeeds.  For a certain number of minutes, it will remember this resolution to be the correct one.  However, after that period, it does a new DNS lookup, resulting in the same issue again.
Let's see what happens.

[CommDoc]

I sure hope that works as an experiment. The only snag is that mine works just fine when I reboot it for about a day or so. Looking forward to hearing what you found out.

[ResetElonex]

Unfortunately, it didn't work...

[Jshel]

Here is an interesting bit of information. If I include the word "NOW" at the end of each command, question, or request. The google home immediately preforms the action. If others can confirm using the word "now" eliminates the delay issues, we can easily identify the problem is not with the network at all but with the device being able to detect the end of a command, question, or request. Making this a programming issue.

Note: This experiment was tested in both noise environments and quiet environments.

[pksjc]

I gave that a try by asking what the time is with "now" at the end.  It didn't work for me unfortunately.

[Jshel]

Thank you for the quick reply I will continue to try to experiment with this. 

[CommDoc]

I'm afraid it didn't work for me either. Thanks for the suggestion. 

[ResetElonex]

That doesn't change anything for me.  Even asking the time takes 20 seconds the first time.  The second time it is fast.  So I tested only once ;-).

[TriLife]

Great sleuthing there 

Tried it out and no noticeable difference. Albeit, home has been responding satisfactorily lately ... 

[Jshel]

I apologize to everyone here. My visiting daughter just informed me, she unplugged the speaker for a few hours yesterday for her own reasons and didn't let me know. It's working like normal (for a day or two) because it's been rebooted. Sorry if I miss lead anyone, I got a little excited for a minute. 

[Wfyoung3]

I’m glad to know it’s not just me. This has been happening since the announcement about Sonos winning their lawsuit against google…almost a week to the day after that announcement my nest display stopped working as it had for years. Now, without fail every command takes between 20 and 30 seconds to actually respond. I’m beyond fed up. I have a very strong mesh network with 900m to 1g down and 350+m up, my primary nest display hub is within 7 ft of a router, it’s happening in both bands, and when I connect to a mobile hotspot. My nest mini is literally next to a router, and it has equally as many problems. Now I’ve noticed it’s not just my smart devices slow to respond, for the last 3 weeks the “stop” command for my alarms is responsive slow as well.

I know google had to make changes in response to the Sonos suit, but if what I’m experiencing is a result of those changes, I will have to seek out other systems, yes, it’s a first World problem, but wasting electricity is a first world luxury, I prefer not to partake in…multiple times I didn’t wait to confirm it heard my response, log in to my cameras 6 hours into a 12 hour shift and see my lights are all on still!

 Google we need answers!

[ResetElonex]

Reply from Google support:
"We've checked your case with our team, we haven't received any major reports from them or from other users regarding Google Nest speakers and displays being slow to respond. This is usually caused by router or network settings, but can also be because of your device's hardware."

So, I guess not enough people have complained yet...

[Axon54]

Oh they’re aware. I was told there was nothing they could or would do about it. Excellent customer support.

[pksjc]

We should give the Google support rep the link to this post and let them read all about it....

[Jonas2]

Same here. My first voice command after some time takes so long to be answered by my Google Nest Hub. Sometimes it doesn't even answer or another Google Nest Hub in another room reacts. That's annoying.

[gneke35]

Toujours le même problème pour tout le monde et aucune solution, merci de revenir aux anciens firms

[pksjc]

I wonder if this is due to the Sonos lawsuit and they had to change the grouping algorithm for multiple devices and this is the result of it.

https://www.howtogeek.com/778558/google-home-speakers-are-losing-features-due-to-a-lawsuit/

I'm going to turn off my other devices and leave only one turned on.  The slowest one.  Let's see if this makes a difference.  One other poster also mentioned that they thought this was only happening on Generation One devices and this may be Google's way of trying to get customers to upgrade.  That would be an interesting thought and a crappy way to push people to buy more when the product was working fine.  

[Axon54]

Since my first post I disconnected Google Home first gen and am now using 2 Google Nest Minis. They are working fine. This would likely confirm that Google  is indeed trying to get users to upgrade. Could there by a more devious company? The silence from Google has been suspicious but now makes total sense. I will not be keeping my minis. I’ll be moving to a more ethical company.

[Orivera72]

I’m different user same issues. The first speaker was a Lenovo so my husband thought that was the brand and updated for a google home hub was wort ok until few months ago. We reset and re set multiple times . Today the relaxing doing stop to been relaxing since hasn’t stop since last night. Ignore all kind of command starting to talk and suddenly stop and reset by them self.

[Gap]

All,

I finally resolved my problem by purchasing a new mesh network router. I was running a ASUS lira trio. I tried everything imaginable to resolve the problems I described in a previous email. Ultimately, I disconnected the Asus router and mesh nodes and tried two things. I borrowed a router from somebody else and my system worked perfectly. I then ran my network off of my phone hotspot and everything worked perfectly. Thus, it was clear that it was router associated. I tried to contact Asus and they had no desire to help me at all. I fiddled around with all the settings I could imagine and nothing improved. I scrapped the Asus trio router and bought a TP-Link mesh network. Immediately. Everything works perfectly. I imagine there is no single cause for everybody's issues in this forum. There are so many interrelated and interdependencies in these systems. However, in my case, after going through all the troubleshooting, it was ultimately an issue with the Asus router. Best of luck to everyone in finding the root cause of the issues you are experiencing.

[thebrenn]

Same issue here. I believe with this many people having virtually the same problem we can rule out our routers and home networks for the most part. I have found the 2nd gen hubs to be more finicky than my old 1st gen hubs. I have a bedroom light with 4 bulbs all with the same name. It can work good for a week then randomly one bulb (never the same bulb) will lag the other 3 or not respond to the command on or off at all. Have to resync all devices. Then good for a bit then it happens again. 

[DeeNesty]

Same issue. Google mini speaker that used to react pretty much instantly but now takes about 10 to 20 seconds to do the action after the command given.

I use it for smart lights and switches, none of which has moved, neither has the route or the mini.

Im a network and IT guy so have tested all the obvious. This is definitely a Google issue.

If they are not resolving this, maybe they are getting out if the smart home business as not taking this problem onboard and resolving will lead to people dumping their stuff for good. Seems they don't want smart home customers..