LG Thing WK7 Chromecast Speaker - Centralized issue discussion

[keeya]

Who should we blame here? LG tells us to contact Google, and when we contact Google they say LG hasn't updated the Chromecast version of their product. It's an high end Smart Speaker and it should not become a paperweight. I have two of those, one still work but I made the mistake of reseting the other and now I cannot use it anymore. There are dozens of people facing the same issue. This is not normal, I've contacted EU legislatives services about similar issues in the past and sure will do again to explain this if it doesn't come to a positive resolution. Feel free to share if you have the same speaker.

IF YOU DON'T COMPLAIN, THEY WON'T FIX IT:

GOOGLE:

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

Chromecast -> Contact Us

--

LG :
https://www.lg.com/

Customer Service > Contact Us

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UPDATE DECEMBER 2024:

Google and LG have no intention to fix this, if you live in Europe fill a complaint to your local Consummer Center here:

https://commission.europa.eu/live-work-travel-eu/consumer-rights-and-complaints/resolve-your-consume...

Scroll down, select your country and fill a complaint.

The European law protect consumers, we don't have to bend the knee to LG and Google.

Si vous vivez en France, vous pouvez poster une plainte ici :

https://signal.conso.gouv.fr

Edit March 2025 : here are the steps to use your  speaker as a bluetooth speaker, it's a hack and lose all assistant features but so don't throw it way it still kinda functionnal....

1. After initiating pairing between the WK7 and Google Home, answer NO to the question "Does the assistant respond?"
2. The app will display the message "There may be a problem." You will have two options: "Quit setup" and "Help Center." You should choose "Quit setup."
3. Once in the Google Home menu, the speaker will still be visible. Click on it.
4. The page that appears will display the speaker's volume in %; click on the gear in the top right corner.
5. In the settings, select Audio.
6. In the list that appears, select "Paired Bluetooth Devices."
7. Then click "Enable Bluetooth Pairing."
8. From the list, select the WK7 speaker again.

9. Finally, you will be able to see in the Bluetooth menu of the smartphone that the WK7 speaker is connected via Bluetooth.

Edit2:

you might want to add a reply to this post to let Sundar Pichai (CEO of Google) how happy we are :

https://x.com/lelapinroi/status/1904120988415000817

Please be polite.

[Dishtv]

Haief

[From_Sydney]

Still not working for me

[keeya]

I also tried, and it's not working for me either, I really doubt they pushed an update (you can ping Google CEO on X see topic first post). Boring.

[Buster_NL]

did anyone try to add the speaker to Google Home with somebody’s iPhone? Because after that the speaker cast ability is working again for all other android users in Google Home

[R-Boss]

Hi!

Yes, I used an iphone 12 (with iOS 18 up-to-date) and it is true that with iphone there are some additional steps that I could not perfom with my android phones (updating the speaker, setting the language and verify that LG speaker can connect to Google home), although these steps do not change anything. At least the connection finishes, but when the app asks you if you can test the "new" speaker, it does not respond to hey/ok google then you could continue or say that it does not respond. If you say to continue the speaker seems to be connected but it does weird things. If the speaker's name is changed, the name returns to the default name and to the new name and it requests to select the room where it is located... The hey/ok google command does not work and always says: connect to google account. The spotify app does not recognize either the speaker (default or new name) then nothing can be played. I do not know how you make it work, but in my case this solution is not working and I tried 5 times...

[Buster_NL]

I also have the 'hey google' issue you mention. But mine is able to cast music (I use youtube music). During setup the last step I confirmed that it worked (although it didn't). Then opened the speaker in google home and added it to a new speaker group, maybe this helps. 

[Buster_NL]

I also have another WK7 speaker that is working completely fine, strange...

[polytrauma]

If you never resetted that other WK7 it will work just fine until you do.

[R-Boss]

Thanks, but is not working either. Although the speaker can be added to a group, the music or radio does not play in wk7.

[keeya]

Talked to a nice tech support LG agent on the phone today, confirmed to me it's out of their control since it has to do with Google refusing the device pairing once reset, so we blamed LG a lot but Google is probably the real culpitr (though LG never once updated the firmware of the device).

[keeya]

Search on Google: "Google Home Device LG Speaker WK7~WK9 – Setup Tutorial"

LG just published a new tutorial for a device that is now not working, I guess they have money to create tutorial for dead product, totally makes sense.

[polytrauma]

That's really odd, since the WK7 has reached EOL, afaik.

[ReviveWK7]

Hi folks,

I picked up this speaker for really cheap knowing the errors/faults/negligence on LG/Google's side. I was caught up in the Google Stadia debacle, I mean at least they unlocked the controller! How nice of Google eh?! So I carried on using the controller via bluetooth and is a decent piece of kit. Now onto this speaker.... really thankful to keeya and everyone in the forum. Reading through the comments, it's shocking how it's radio silence from these multi-billion companies. Now the bones of contention......the hack that allows bluetooth connection works great. The speaker sounds super good, therein lies the issue I think...the fact that it can be used as a Bluetooth speaker will probably cover them in a sense that it is not "pure" landfill material. The fact that it doesn't offer Google Assistant we all know, there is something else that should mentioned. Hi-Res Audio or lack there of. While it is connected to bluetooth, the output is only in "stereo". It might be all irrelevant now, I tried to change it on my phone so that it would use the "hd audio" codec however it seems that the speaker does not support this even though it says it on the box! Here's hoping we can make some sort of difference or the boffins over on Reddit can do something with this

[keeya]

Pairing is not always 100% with my phone and another issue with the bluetooth hack is the speaker will randomly, more or less often, speak and say "please connect to google home", well ok but if you put it in bedroom be warned ahah 🙂

[keeya]

I mean it can speak even when you don't use it, also the led on the top will randomly flash even also when speaker is not used

[ReviveWK7]

Hahaha yeah it's temperamental to say the least, I have put the mic off, the downside is the 4 annoying amber lights that are constantly on. Will try and cover that up at some point in an aesthetically good way

[AuRu_M]

Hey mate, what did you do to keep it running and be able to connect via Bluetooth?

[ReviveWK7]

It's a bit ropey to be honest, I just followed the hack that's on the pinned post. I did have to try a few times as Google Home is so janky at the best of times.