Home devices ignore last word or syllable

[wtfhits]

There is a fundamental issue with how our Google Home devices parse commands.

They ALL regularly actively ignore the last word or syllable that we say. This happens with all of our devices - Google Home Minis, Nest Hub, and Nest Hub 2nd Generation (so please don't bother telling me to reset the devices - they have been reset multiple times and the issue has persisted).

When we only had Google Home Mini devices, I thought it was just missing the last bit. But since we've had a Nest Hub and Nest Hub 2nd generation it's clear that it's an active decision by the model. This is because the command initially correctly appears. Then for no reason it simple removes the last bit before doing the command.

This, combined with the Assistant's random attempts to do something even when the command doesn't mean anything, can cause havoc.

A few examples:

"Set an alarm for 8am" -> "Set an alarm for 8" = sets an alarm for 8pm instead of 8am

"Turn off the light" -> "Turn off the" = "sorry, power control isn't available" (this happens ALL THE TIME)

"Turn off the light in the bedroom" -> "Turn off the light in the" = Randomly turning off a few lights throughout the house (but weirdly, not all the lights)

"Sleepy time" -> "Sleepy" = "You must be tired" (it should be the trigger for a routine)

I can't remember the exact commands involved, but it's also cancelled multiple timers at the same time before because of missing a word! It should NEVER cancel a timer without being sure that's what you asked for

[Jondalrun]

Do you live in a noisy environment? I have mostly google speakers but I have one echo dot 3 with clock that I use when I exercise. If I have any videos playing on the nearby computer it behaves exactly as you describe.

[wtfhits]

Nope - generally very quiet. So quiet that sometimes more than 1 Google Home responds to queries in fact (which is in itself ridiculous).

But I can be right next to it, with no background noise, and I try to annunciate carefully - and it still does it.

Happens to both me and my partner (Australian/British accent, and Polish accent) in the same way.

[Princesss]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for reaching out.

We're sorry to hear about this experience and we want to further check what's causing this to happen. By this, can you provide the following info?

• Cast firmware version of the speakers that exhibit the same behavior
• Distance of the Google Nest speaker from the router
• Make and model of the router where Google Nest speakers are connected

Lastly, can anyone provide a short video clip while commanding the Google Nest speakers so we can isolate the issue further?

Looking forward to your responses.

Best,

Princess

[wtfhits]

Cast version: This is a pointless question. This issue happens on all of our devices, which includes several Nest Hub Minis, several Nest Hub 2nd Generations, and a Nest Wifi Point. There is no reason that these wouldn't be up to date.

Distance: Any. Sometimes it'll be right next to the speaker, sometimes it will be in another room. It makes no difference.

The current WiFi router is a Nest WiFi router, with a Nest WiFi point, and a Google WiFi point. But that also makes no difference. This has been going on for ages and it also happened through our Virgin Hub and an Asus router we were using for a while. We have a 350mbps stable internet connection, so if it's anything to do with the internet connection, then there really is no hope for most people!

I don't have a video clip yet - but I do have some recordings in my Activity History if it's possible to share those.

My favourite recent change:

I said "Weather tonight in London".

I live 40 miles from London, so this is a pretty obvious question.

The screen showed "Weather tonight in London" for a couple of seconds.

Then it changed to "Weather tonight in law", and told me the weather for some place I've never heard of. I listened to the recording - it is very clear I said London.

[Mojomcmonkey]

Mine is ALWAYS doing this

Especially asking the weather tomorrow

[Mojomcmonkey]

It's like it hears an expected question. Presumes it knows what you are asking and interrupts you mid sentence

[wtfhits]

It is interesting that yours interrupts you mid sentence. Ours waits until we've finished, then waits a couple of seconds, and then changes what it thinks it heard, and answers that question/does that action.

[joebartlett]

We've been experiencing this exact same problem on our Google Nest devices recently too. Also in British English, also in a quiet environment & speaking clearly, close to the speaker.

It's most noticeable on our Nest Hub (2nd gen) where you can see on the screen that it's picked up the full command (e.g., "turn off the bedroom light") then drops the last word before trying to execute it (e.g., £turn off the bedroom"). It's extremely frustrating because it's definitely hearing us right in the first place, it just needs to keep the last word!

It sounds like Google have broken something in an update, possibly on the server side. For reference our Nest Hub system firmware version is 309385, cast version 1.56.309385.

[wtfhits]

Yep, that sounds like EXACTLY the same as what we are experiencing. For us it's been like that for a while now, but was a sudden change.

We've started to get into the habit of adding "now" at the end of commands. For nearly all commands, it's safe for it to ignore that without changing the meaning. But there are some things that doesn't work for, such as triggers for routines which need to match exactly.

[Dan_A]

Hi folks,

Apologies for the delayed response. Have you all tried the suggestion provided by @wtfhits? Try adding now at the end of the command if you're still experiencing the same concern. Also, it would be a lot of help if you could try to interchange your devices location and also, try to mute or unplug all others except one and see if it responds. Do the same on the other devices and tell me how it goes.

Regards,

Dan

[Dan_A]

Hey there,

I wanted to follow up and see if you still need help. Please let me know if you are still having any concerns or questions from here, as I would be happy to take a closer look and assist you further.

Best,

Dan

[Dan_A]

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 need assistance or want to discuss topics, feel free to start a new thread.

Cheers,

Dan

[wtfhits]

Locking the thread makes no sense. The problem is not fixed, and people are still having the problem. I can understanding locking it is there's no activity for years, or possibly months, where the problem might have genuinely been fixed. But it's entirely possible for more people to still report more information about this very much ongoing problem.

If it's locked, I'll just copy the text into a new thread with a link to this one - because locking an ongoing issue in this state is simply not appropriate.

[Dan_A]

Hi wtfhits,

Apologies for the misunderstanding! Since the firmware are up-to-date and you've done a factory reset on all the devices, it would help a lot if you could do a sequential reboot by unplugging the power cord of your modem followed by your Nest Wi-Fi router, then your Nest speakers and also, restarting your phone might also help. Plug everything back starting with your modem. Let's make sure we narrow things down and monitor.

Keep us posted.

Best,

Dan

[Jake]

Hey there,

I wanted to check in and see if you are still in need of any help. Please let me know, as I would be happy to assist, and answer any questions you may have.

Best regards,
Jake

[Juni]

Hello there,

We haven’t heard back from you, so I'll be locking this thread in 24 hours. Feel free to create a new one if you have more questions or have other concerns in the future.
 

Thanks,

Juni

[wtfhits]

My "suggestion" of adding "now" at the end is a crude workaround, not a solution to the problem - and as I said it doesn't work for all commands where a specific commands is required.

I'm not swapping the devices around - because I know it won't help. This problem happened in our last house which has a completely different setup to our current house. And it happens on every single device regardless of whether another device might be able to hear it or not.

The issue is a bug. I don't work at Google so it's not really possible for my to investigate, but the problem definitely seems to have coincided with when more of the command parsing (rather than just the voice recognition) was moved to AI - or perhaps it was just a change in the AIs parameters or something. That clearly isn't working. It would be more effective to just have it fail with unknown commands, and have a team adding more commands manually.