Multiple devices responding at the same time

[seknav]

Issue began week of December 20.

I've had multiple Google Home and Nest speakers in our home for years. Nothing has changed in the past 6 months. 2 weeks ago, multiple speakers are answering when the wake command is issued. I say 'Hey Google, what is 1+1?' and two or three speakers will respond with the information or action that has been requested. There are four speakers on the floor I'm on. One that I'm next to, and others in completely separate rooms respond. There is one in a bedroom (2nd gen Mini) and one in the bathroom (Nest Audio) which regularly go rogue. The other in another bedroom is silent.

I understand that upon hearing the wake command, multiple devices negotiate with each other to decide which will respond. In this case they don't seem to be following that procedure (the one in the other room or the bathroom jump in even though the one I'm standing next to is closest).

I've rebooted the devices and the wake sensitivity is already set to low.

Why is this happening and how can I resolve it?

I have read existing articles but this specific issue (multiple devices on the same network responding to one wake command) is not covered.

I asked this question in the Google Assistant community but was asked to post it here.

[GodsRaven]

Only modem I have is the one from my Internet carrier.  It's fairly new.  Don't see how that could help.

[swd10a]

Wish you the BEST of luck. We have ALL tried equally "extreme" measures... and as it is ALWAYS the best practice to have newer or/and UPDATED equipment... these problems go MUCH deeper than just a quick "replace the router/modem" fix. 

Google has done this to themselves and by extension: US... we were ALL SO excited to put these devices in our homes and equally frustrated for the MANY MANY attempts to keep them working correctly. I have NOT read even 1 instance where anyone has gotten it to be "fixed" for more than a few days... this software OS Google now is using is EXTREMELY buggy and I believe it affects the individual user's PROFILE as it seems to follow them after all the resets and replacements. 

Fingers Crossed... I have given up on ever getting any new equipment from Google for a very very long time.... this has been going on for me for OVER 2 YEARS!

[GodsRaven]

Oh wow.  You're the longest I've heard of.  I knew most were saying since about January of this year (2022).  It's disheartening to hear it's actually much longer than that.  Just further proof that Google doesn't care about customers as long as their bottom line isn't affected.

[OurAngryBadger]

Sorry but all the recent posts pointing to the router being the cause is simply wrong. My only router is the Google Home router, so explain that one. I have my Google router connected directly to my Verizon FiOS ONT terminal. Still having all the problems described. Resetting does work - for a few days. This problem has been ongoing for almost a year now. It's 100% a software issue because I have replaced my Google Home devices multiple times with new ones and they still do it. I have completely lost all faith in Google products TBH. This isn't a threat, just a statement, if Google can't dedicate some time to actually fix this I am going to be throwing all my Google products in the trash and canceling each and every Google subscription I have (Google Business, Google Drive, YouTube Premium, etc.) All of my friends have Alexa and have 0 problems and can do a lot more with their Alexas. I chose Google Home ecosystem because it made sense as an Android user but here I am 2 years later I really regret it.

[GodsRaven]

THANK YOU!!!  I'm so tired of people claiming they did this or that and it was fixed.  Then I see other people here that say it isn't, and in the meantime Google is saying they have a solution.

This is NOT solved, Google doesn't give a crap, and I'm really annoyed at the money I've spent on their junk and they just don't want to make it work. 

I'm at the point where I only use it for my lights now, because anything else is just frustrating (music, podcasts, cameras, etc). And forget about the door locks I was going to get.  I'm terrified of trusting Google with my home safety.  They're liable to let anyone into my house.  

Bottom line: I do not trust Google.  I wouldn't use it now for anything important like thermostats, smoke alarms, security, etc.  

[OurAngryBadger]

Yep. I know this thread is about multiple speakers responding but just to also point out, I have the Google Home wifi system, the main router and one of the extender pucks. Every 4-6 hours the puck completely loses all internet connection and only unplugging and replugging it in fixes it. It's annoying because the Google Home app says the wifi mesh is "great!" but it's actually not working at all. As I move through my home when my phone or any other devices decide to connect to the puck, nothing loads. I've replaced it with a new one too and same issue, so again a software issue.  My solution has been to buy a smart plug to plug it into and automate it so that it turns off and back on every 2 hours. How ridiculous is that? Google Support is completely useless, they tell me to restart it (unplug and plug), and of course that fixes it so they disconnect the live chat! But they completely ignore me when I tell them the problem comes back a few hours after I do that.

I have lots of smart home devices from many brands and the only ones I have consistent problems with are the Google ones, which is shocking to me as Google is the biggest and wealthiest company of them all.

[GodsRaven]

Aggravating, isn't it?  Google's only answer to anything seems to be, "reset".  Can you imagine if the main software they use (Windoze, Linux, Mac), started acting up and they were told to just keep resetting every few hours?  Pretty sure they wouldn't put up with it.  But they expect us to do so.  Every day I get more frustrated with them.  I e been using Google as my search engine for years.  Guess I'm going to stop now, just because.

[OurAngryBadger]

To further expand on my last post, I also can't believe how long these products have been out and they still haven't done something as simple as fix it so that you can ask any of your speakers about your timers or alarms, has to be the one you originally spoke to as if someone doesn't move around their house. If they can't fix something as simple as that I don't have any faith they can fix a problem as massive as this.

[GodsRaven]

Yep.  I've gone back to using a regular, old fashioned alarm clock.  Google was supposed to wake me up early one morning and I missed an appointment.  Turns out, I will set an alarm and it will either set it on another device or not even set it at all.  I ask a few minutes later and it says, "there are no alarms set".  I can trust my cat to wake me up more than I can trust an alarm I set with Google.

[OurAngryBadger]

My upstairs is fairly open, but I have a Home speaker in my bedroom, bathroom, living room, kitchen, dining room, and two more in each kids bedroom. It never ceases to amaze me how the speaker furthest away from me at any given time is the one that answers me. Last night I asked Google to set an alarm as I was laying in bed, and the speaker in my kitchen on the other side of the house answered, not the one right next to me, lol. What a disgrace. How hard is it to program them to respond based on which one detects the loudest voice? No way my voice is louder in the kitchen at night and not my bedroom. But yeah, agreed it's only real use is turning lights on and off but even that fails frequently. SHOULD be able to say "turn lights on" and have the ones in your current room come on, but because the wrong speakers answer, you have to say "turn [room name] lights on"

[GodsRaven]

It's even worse.  I ask it to turn on a particular light, and my main hub will often tell me it's not working.  I go into another room and ask the nest to turn it on, and if it answers, it will turn it on!  What?   My phone answers for my hub often now too.  In fact, when I'm in the living room, where my hub is, it rarely answers any more.  When I go into my bedroom, where I have my nest, my nest answers, but my living room hub is also answering.  It's like living in a mental asylum, but the inmates are all computers.

[Bitz09]

It's funny (actually not)...when I setup my first devices, none of this happened.  I had devices (Google Mini's) in every room, a Max for Music, and two Hubs as Alarm Clocks.  You could walk around the house and say turn on lights, and it turned on the lights in the room you were in.  I wound up ripping out devices so that there were none close to each other...and distant ones still answer.  What I see is that the close one is "thinking" and the other answers.  It totally sucks!

[GodsRaven]

I evidently got mine at the start of this mess.  I bought my first nest mini, had it a week or so, went on vacation, came back and got the hub, and another nest mini, and about a week later started noticing issues.  That was my own fault right there.  I should have immediately returned the second mini and the hub right then.

[jcolson]

Please give your solution some time (a few days) before declaring victory on this one.  As, surely, you can see from this thread that every "solution" that has shaken these Home units back into working again, fails just a few days later, unfortunately.

It is interesting that a new router would do anything close to "resetting" each device (the only other way we've seen the issue temporarily fixed) did you change the wireless network details, so you had to reset each home unit to connect to the new wireless network?

If _not_, maybe flushing the default routers' ARP cache every few hours, somehow,  would accomplish the same "fix" ..

[skunkapekiller]

about 5 days later the new modem has been the fix...everything is working as it should.

[GodsRaven]

As others have noted, this is not an answer.  First of all, everyone shouldn't have to go out and buy new models just to accommodate Google.  Secondly, those who actually use Google WiFi are having this same issue.  Third, I'm not sure who you are, but I find it interesting that when everyone else is having issues and it isn't being fixed by anything, including a Google WiFi modem, you suddenly claim that yours fixes it, especially when I just put Ina report that the original "solution" isn't really a solution.

Even if, and I do mean if, yours has worked for five days, there's no guarantee it will continue.  Mine worked for two weeks at one time then stopped.  I'm not spending more time and money on more stuff just to have it screw up again.  It's up to Google to fix this problem, not me.

Oh, and everything is NOT working just as it should.  If it were, you wouldn't have had to go out and buy a new modem.

[nlwclark]

I'm curious, does anyone also have the issue of the devices sometimes not recognizing your voice? About every other day that I try to put an item on my shopping list, the device will say my voice cannot be recognized (this is after years of things working well, so voice training is not the issue). The most annoying part is that after saying my voice isn't recognized it will go into a long explanation of how to set up voice recognition, and often won't allow me to interrupt/stop the explanation.  

[GodsRaven]

Nope.  In fact, mine will respond to anyone's voice.  This is why I don't trust Google with anything that I want secure, or even just important, such as door locks, doorbells, thermostats, security cameras, smoke detectors, etc.  

[swd10a]

You DO know it's SUPPOSED to reply to ANYONE's, (GUEST's) voice right? ... Unless you have this turned off. It's just that if you have setup and linked it to a Google account... it will respond with that specific info then... Still... not sure I'd not have a front door access setup where it opens to a GUEST either. ... 

[GodsRaven]

I didn't have it turned off at first, but changed it and it made no difference at all. I admit I wasn't aware of it at first.   Why train it to recognize my voice if it doesn't matter anyway?   As I said, it doesn't matter though.  I think they put the option there to give you a false sense if security.  

[Chubaka]

Bros, i just gave up on this.  Unplugged my google nest untill later...

[GodsRaven]

Maybe, in the far distant future, when Chubaka helps save the world from extinction and Luke finds out Darth IS his father, they'll fix it.  Until then I think we're pretty much screwed.

[Chubaka]

Love your comment.

[jcolson]

Yes, I'm giving up on this issue, as it seems that Google is not interested in solving it or even confirming it.

I think that it's sad that the engineers that work on this team don't even use their own product (if they did, this would DEFINITELY have been discovered and solved by now).

I have just ordered replacement Alexa devices, which writing "skills" for seem to be much more straightforward as well.

Ciao!

Jay

[swd10a]

I don't blame you... I've spent SOOOO much $$ on these Google devices. I can't remember when I've had friends over... and then wanted to "show off" my cool Google home setup.. and it has NEVER worked or responded correctly. It is embarrassing... and they look at me like am a damned fool for investing in them.... good idea, just don't think Google is ready for Prime Time.   (The same problem has been going on for over 2 years now for me... started occurring when they introduced the ability to link multiple speakers together for Music groups... remember that?) 

[GodsRaven]

I was just asked to take a survey while in this community.  It asked me why I was here.  Rather than say it was to "answer someone's question", I put "looking for help", since that's what we're really here for.  It asked me if I got the info I needed.  No.  It then asked me what I'm going to do now.  "Stop using the device". 

[GodsRaven]

I can't really afford to buy all new ones right now, as I was just forced, prematurely, to invest in a new car.  Long story, but car manufacturers suck too and I ended up getting $800 out of a car I should have traded in for $4000.00.

Anyway, that's where I'm headed too though.  I hate that I've spent so much on a bunch of paperweights.  I'll probably wait a year or so and make sure Alexa isn't having 5G issues.  I'm going to check out their communities.  

[Chubaka]

Also left link to this community in my 1star google review on play store. Maybe it will get noticed.

[GodsRaven]

Great idea.  I don't know if it will help, but if it would affect their bottom line, even a little, that would be awesome.  

[Robhar]

Finally found a forum where this has been happening currently. Really hating Google right now. 

[Bitz09]

It's sad that a company the size of Google cannot or will not fix their products.  My Pixel 6 has been a disaster and my smart speakers aren't very smart.  If I didn't have such a large investment in HW, I would throw it all in the bin.  It's absolute Garbage....

[GodsRaven]

I do have a large investment and still considering throwing it all out.  It's a big decision.  I have to prepare in advance by buying Echo HW first, but I'm getting really close.  Right now, it's not doing 1/10 of what I bought it for.

[GodsRaven]

Totally agree.  Seems like I get a new problem at least every few weeks as a result of this.  My daughter has Echo and I'm really close to switching.

[swd10a]

OK... Just throwing a few things "AGAINST THE WALL TO SEE IF THEY STICK" ... here are some things that have, "temporarily" gotten my Google devices to work which "MAY" give someone, (Google support?) some ideas: 

- I have noticed that when having MULTIPLE users on the same network that Google Home is on, with their cell phones... Doing a Force Stop with the Google Home app (Android) and then clearing out the app's cache...ON ALL CELL PHONES.. suddenly... but just for a few days... all devices start to work. (Also KEEP ALL cell phones that are connected to your own Google "Home" updated always with the latest updates for everything...I've noticed that if they each are all over the place, it only creates more issues. )

 - Re-train your voice at EACH device... for EACH user in the Google Home's app... will make the devices suddenly start working... BUT only for a few days. (Re-training your voice is something that should be done OFTEN... and no...this should NOT be needed, but hey..... )

- Going all around the house and saying, "Hey Google, SYNC my devices.." seems to help.... but ONLY FOR A FEW DAYS...do this at EACH device... you will hear DIFFERENT replies... weird. 

- Turning OFF your Bluetooth's "MUSIC SHARE" option that is found in the Advance Settings for Bluetooth on ALL of your phones... for some crazy reason... has gotten ALL my devices to suddenly work and become VERY responsive.... however, different Google devices are now starting to mess up again... but MOST of them continue to work. 

UNclear why any of these options have worked for me... (if only for a short time)... but clearly it seems that Google has MULTIPLE fronts to work on to "fix" these issues... that I'm BETTING they have NO idea how to remediate. This is why they are not more engaged here. (When Microsoft has a software issue... you NEVER hear about it... UNTIL THEY HAVE A FIX... otherwise, they act like it doesn't exist... so Google Support isn't alone on this "style" of support.... ) 

Hope some of this all makes some sort of sense?? LOL

[GodsRaven]

Since I'm the only person living here, none of this is an issue for me.

[trashcoder]

Same issue. Started months ago.

- Multiple devices responding. Sometimes same response. Sometimes different response.

- Timers running on multiple devices.

This is really annoying!

[GodsRaven]

Absolutely.  I get the most annoying responses.  Two different speakers telling me two different things even.  I'm so over it.

[jcolson]

@I've moved to multiple Alexa's ... To be honest, she has her own issues, but the multiple issue, is not an issue.  Once you get used to the "skills and games" concept, your golden!  Bezos got my bucks for now in home automation, even though his rocket ship is very unimpressive!

[GodsRaven]

That's nice to know.  Seems like there was a reason I went with Google in the beginning, like an app Alexis didn't accept that Google did.  But, if Google isn't going to work at all, I may as well switch.  I have a huge investment in these, so it's going to take a while, but I'm going to switch too.  Honestly, my final reason is that the "community managers" and "specialists" have proven that they're here just to convince us that Google's problems are our fault, and that really ticks me off.

[skunkapekiller]

I sometimes wonder if people with issues are people with a "guest" network setup?