Have several Mini 1 speakers (1st gen) and their recognition quality went down after 2nd gen release

[itoldusoandso]

I observed the recognition quality on the original Google Home Mini 1 gen speaker has decreased since the 2nd gen release. 

It's not a hypothesis because I am certain myself but of course there is no way to prove it.  The speakers had no issues recognizing basic commands such a "REDIAL THE LAST NUMBER"... Now any of the speakers have problems recognizing even such a simple command unless I have the speaker in front of me. 

It used to be I had the speaker in the other side of the room and would say "redial the last number" and recognition was superb.

It's not just one speaker, I have 4 of them, so reset doesn't make sense and I already tried. 

Room noise level didn't change, in contrary, it's the ambient noise more quiet now than before. 

I am confident the issue is with software update. Google did software update and it probably pushed to all speakers or for whatever reason since the quality of the Gen 2 speaker is better, perhaps the same software update is tuned to the Gen 2 speaker and not Gen 1.

I observe the issue is about 3 years or so but I was always wondering perhaps I just need to re-record my voice or something. I tried but that didn't improve. 

[Juni]

Hi there,

I apologize for the inconvenience you're experiencing. We'll work together to identify the cause of the problem and find a solution. If possible, could you try to re-setup your Google Home Mini and use another network, then observe if it makes a difference? Let us know the result by updating this thread.

Regards,

Juni

[itoldusoandso]

I found the reason. I have one speaker reset and setup with 1 language only. Works very well even for English and I am not a native speaker for English. The moment I setup any 2nd language on the device, the quality of speech recognition for English diminishes significantly.  If I remove the 2nd language again, no problem. I tested that in different language combinations and it seems it doesn't really matter. I speak several languages fluently same as English. So if the issue was just English pronunciation, I would accept as mumbling in English but not in Spanish or French.

But it's making it a pair that reduces the quality of recognition.

Now I understand the concept behind 2nd language, it can become hit and miss. But I already have several of these speakers and wanted actually get rid of 2 of them instead of having 4 speakers.

The issue is this:
Google does not allow customizing the Hey Google phrase. This is pathetic decision.  So I can't say Hey Google to one speaker and Hey Pinto to the Spanish speaker, no. All of them are Hey Google, so this is useless cacophony of voices. I have to turn them on and off every time I want to use one.

If I was able to say the phrase I wanted, Google Home would know I want to speak in a certain language and it wouldn't have this recognition issues.

The request to allow customizing the prompt is a long-standing one and Google completely ignores this. I have submitted dozen times request and there are plenty of requests in the forums here and on the web. It's arrogant how Google ignores that simple type issue like this.

So back to square one - no use of having dual language if the recognition sucks.

[Juni]

Hi itoldusoandso,

Thanks for the details you’ve shared.  Since the steps didn't work on your end, we'd be happy to take a look into this for you. Please fill out this form with all the needed information, then let me know once done. Lastly, could you provide us with your device's firmware version? Check out the steps below on how to get it:

1. Make sure your mobile device or tablet is linked to the same account as your speaker or display.
2. Open the Google Home app .
3. Tap your device's tile.
4. At the top right, tap Settings Device information.
5. Under "Technical information," find Cast firmware: X.XXX.XXXXX.

Thanks,

Juni