Spoken broadcast message changed to spoken message??

[realjax]

So when I broadcast a  spoken message to other devices in the house, the nest devices start to analyse the message and then change it to a spoken message using the google voice.  I know this sounds absurd and that is exactly what it is.  Why on earth would you want to change a spoken message into a.... spoken message??? Which 9 out of 10 times is wrong as well!! How do I turn this 'feature' off and prevent the home devices from trying to analyse spoken broadcast messages??

[hvanmegen]

This is a rolling upgrade being sent to all users; more and more people are reporting this issue as they are no longer able to send their own voices, but are forced to use Google's infuriating speech-to-text-to-speech conversion instead of hearing their family members own voices.

The biggest problem I have with this is that NOBODY asked us if we wanted this feature and even worse, they have not given us a way of turning it off entirely!!!!!!!

[NotAvailable]

We just get the pulsing light / listening issue fixed and now this next bug.  2-3 days ago we also lost the ability to broadcast in ourbown families voice for no apparent reason.  Happens on the Google Audios, Google Minis, and old-fashioned Google Home.  Voice-to-speech is impersonal and not accurate.  Come on Google, do better and return to "family" audio.  Cast Firmware 2.57.375114

[hvanmegen]

Yeah, it's hit or mis over here.. 75% of all messages are translated using speech-to-text and then sent as Google's voice via their text-to-speech solution.. it's annoying as hell, even though it now specifies who said what. I wish they didn't do this. Sometimes I really question why I trust Google to have their things working reliably.. they can't even handle something as simple as this.

And you know what the annoying part is? Sending samples takes less CPU power than their nonsense.. I really don't get why they're interpreting it, apart from the fact that they want to scrape the data and use it somehow.

[fredhartrick]

Well, scrape the data for yourselves & then send my voice as is. I've skimmed hundreds of messages on this subject and not one has had anything positive to say about it. In fact, I can't imagine why anyone would want it.

[DillanWeems]

I've been having the same issue for the past week or so. If anyone in the house says "hey Google, broadcast..." the device will stop and think for quite awhile, then broadcast the message as text-to-speech. This has always happened here and there, but now it happens for almost every broadcast. The wait between when Google hears the request and actually broadcasts is even more frustrating. This pause has been upwards of 20 seconds a few times.

This happens on multiple devices and doesn't seem to be affected by distance from the device or background noise.

[hvanmegen]

This new 'feature' is utterly useless.. we're a bilingual family (speaking Dutch and English) and it continuously messes up the messages that we're trying to send.. and the fact that you can't figure out who sent the message is even more annoying.

[MarielaRD]

We have the same issue and it is extremely frustrating not to have the voice message broadcasted. I have a very strong accent in English and my family speaks a very particular form of Spanish. All my messages are constantly inaccurate with the new text-to-speech feature, to the point that broadcasting has become useless to our family. I don't recall having any notification from Google about this change.

[monsterdavis717]

i hate this new feature. please someone tag me if you figure out how to go back to normal human voices

[fredhartrick]

My guess is that the interminable delay in sending broadcasts is the time it takes to send the message to Google, process it for whatever their purposes may be, and send the mangled remains back to us.  I suspect they are trying- and failing miserably- to begin the switch to Bard-backed broadcasting. Bard would want the translated message as input.

[quickpick]

I have 7 Google home devices in my house. it used to work very well which broadcast using my own voice. Since, a few days back, it starts broadcasting with transcripted GA voice. The broadcast also delays for a few seconds. Very annoying. It looses all the emotion and expression. I also sometimes mixing the broadcast with other languages. The transcripted voice could not pick up those properly and the broadcast now is garbage. Why Google starts doing this?

[hvanmegen]

They are doing this because they can.. and we can't get in touch with them any other way than trying to complain about it here, which they probably don't even read..

I'm so fed up with this that I've started to tell people never to buy anything from Google ever again. I'm also going to look for alternatives to this as this is completely useless.

GOOGLE, WE WANT OUR OWN VOICE MESSAGES BACK!!!

[VickStiX]

You CAN call them. Or maybe have them call you back. I forget where I FINALLY found the option. And I think they might have called me back once I requested a call, but I can't remember.  I've been trying to figure out HOW I finally reached them. It was two weeks ago, and according to the person I talked to, this was NOT a new feature, it was an obvious glitch. They had me check a setting that said to use my voice, which was already checked. They created a trouble ticket, and said they would escalate the problem. Two weeks and the problem still exists. 😡😡😡

[fredhartrick]

https://goo.gle/3BICUaB may be what you're looking for.

[EffanyBoy]

Get Alexa. I’ve had multiple issues with my GA in the past ever since buying it abt 4 years ago. But I bought an Amazon Echo Dot 5th gen and Alexa responds much faster than google. I’ve also never had any issues with Alexa at all compared to my GA

[fredhartrick]

Use this link to let them know they have a problem. Obviously they don't know it yet: https://goo.gle/3BICUaB

And you might consider repeating the link anywhere you can. It's way too well hidden.

[MplsCustomer]

This just started happening to us as well.

On another post (https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Speakers-and-Displays/Spoken-broadcast-message-changed-to-spo...), Google Nest says "Currently, we don’t have the option to turn this feature off."

So it seems that Google Nest:

1) Decided that it would no longer broadcast the customer's spoken voice,

2) Did NOT tell customers that it was making this change,

3) Decided to call this a "feature" (ha ha), and

4) Decided NOT to provide an option to go back to what we had previously.

[hvanmegen]

GOOGLE, WE WANT OUR OWN VOICE MESSAGES BACK!!!

[Oceandeep]

simply arrogant, google will be the next Yahoo!

[fredhartrick]

Oh  yeah, I remember Yah... what was that again? And then there was AOL; and the older people in the room may remember the world's almost-monopoly on computers that was called... umm... oh yeah, IBM.  Followed by Winnowers or Wenders, something like that.

[KimmieB]

It's awful. We use the broadcasting facility a lot, but with GA translating it into text speak is rubbish. Doesn't work! If it doesn't go back to our own voice, I may have to get rid of them.

[Nickodevoe]

So glad I found this thread, this has been one of the main use cases we use our Nests for. First the broadcast feature outright stopped working for a couple weeks, and I tried everything to fix it. Now it can broadcast again, but only using GA voice to read the message...? Please give us the option to return to the recorded voice messages, as the GA voice loses all personal emotion and inflection

[Noddydog]

@Google. If you don’t change this back, we’re swapping to Alexa.

[hvanmegen]

GOOGLE, WE WANT OUR OWN VOICE MESSAGES BACK.. THIS FEATURE SUCKS!

[hvanmegen]

Today I called with a Google service representative after having an argument with my wife about these speakers not doing what they were bought to do, and even though my line got disconnected, when they came back to me in the call (right before disconnected) they told me it should have been fixed, and so far so good.. I would still like to know how I can fix this my self, if only as an instruction to leave here for people that are frustrated by same issue and to save them 30 minutes in a call queue.

[DillanWeems]

That is good to hear! Last night my devices began working like they used to also. Every broadcast message was in my voice and happened quickly with no long pause. Fingers crossed that the issue is fixed and won't come back!

[MplsCustomer]

@DillanWeems 

Ours is not yet fixed, and now there is a delay before we get Google's transcribed voice message.

[MplsCustomer]

Our own voices are now once again being broadcast.

[Oceandeep]

Have you update your google nest hubs to achieve that?

[MplsCustomer]

@Oceandeep 

We didn't update anything.  (You can't force our Nest Hubs' firmware to update anyhow.)

For perhaps 10 days, our broadcasts were being transcribed into a Google voice, and then on Oct. 20, our own voices were once again being broadcast.  I have no idea what's going on.

[Bluenoser]

Did it stay working with your own voices? Ours has not and it’s driving me crazy 

[VickStiX]

It's NOT fixed for everyone. 😡😡😡😡

[Bluenoser]

I’m wondering if it has stayed working correctly since the call? I just saw this response after searching every thread because we are at our wits end with the AI voice 

[VickStiX]

Mine is STILL BROKEN!! I WANT OUR BOICES BACK GOOGLE!!!

[fredhartrick]

Nothing but jealousy here. What number did you call???

[ViciousNarwhal]

Maybe processing related.

[ViciousNarwhal]

 Since Goole processes the audio, it's more cost effective to send the Google voice than send the original audio.  They're going to what's best for their bottom line which saves them money, even if it annoys a few people.

[makapav]

You are right, but if this processing is happening on device then through Matter/Thread, this message should be relayed within the local network and never need to reach Google servers. The reality is that we are now witnessing the manifestation of a poorer Google that is become extremely parsimonious over the last 10 years.

[MplsCustomer]

@makapav 

I think we don't know why this is happening. For perhaps 10 days in October, our broadcasts (from one Nest Hub to our other Nest Hubs) were being transcribed into a Google voice, and then, since October. 20, our own voices are once again being broadcast.

[ViciousNarwhal]

Also note that for some weird reason, I could not post those two comments in one post.  It complained that it was not allowed in this community.  WTH

[makapav]

This change is an absolute disaster. Especially like you pointed out for multilingual people like us. I would think with the number of Indians and Chinese employed by Google this use case would have been intimately personal to them. I stopped recommending any Google products when they killed the Chromecast audio device. This just solidifies my decision.