The Google Assistant’s broadcasting feature can be a handy addition to your smart home when it comes to making announcements. Let’s just call it a 21st century intercom. You can use the various Google Nest smart speakers in different rooms of your home to announce to family members that breakfast is ready. Or remind kids upstairs that it’s time to start homework. You can even inform them that the movie is about to start. I mean, I can go on and on since the list of possibilities is endless.
However, a strange bug popped up recently where the broadcast message on Google Home and Nest devices is not using a user’s voice. Instead, it has changed to the built-in Google Assistant voice. This is a bit of a concern, especially for people in a Family Group. Each person’s voice is supposed to be distinct so you can easily tell if the broadcasted message is from your dad, mum, elder sister or younger brother. But with the broadcast message voice now changed to the built-in Google Assistant voice, you can’t tell who is communicating.
This is a huge inconvenience. It was pretty evident when going through the many comments in the Google Nest Community forum and the Google Home subreddit. I stay alone, so I don’t have any use cases for the broadcast feature. But when I tested it for this article’s purpose, I got mixed results of it mostly working and at times not working properly. And indeed, there are others having a similar experience with the broadcast message voice on their Nest devices.
Google aware & on top of it
The issue with Google Home and Nest devices using the default voice to broadcast a message instead of a user’s voice has been around for a few weeks now. And the good thing is Google already acknowledged it and is looking into it.
However, there are no new updates to share. But we’ll keep an eye on the forum threads and let you know when there are new updates.
Featured image: Google
PiunikaWeb started as purely an investigative tech journalism website with main focus on ‘breaking’ or ‘exclusive’ news. In no time, our stories got picked up by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and many others. Want to know more about us? Head here.
Hillary Keverenge
2114 Posts
Tech has been my playground for over a decade. While the Android journey began early, it truly took flight with the revolutionary Lollipop update. Since then, it's been a parade of Android devices (with a sprinkle of iOS), culminating in a mostly happy marriage with Google's smart home ecosystem. Expect insightful articles and explorations of the ever-evolving world of Android and Google products coupled with occasional rants on the Nest smart home ecosystem.
Next article View Article
