Theres been some trouble at home lately. Not your home, hopefully, but if you live in Google HQ, then maybe. Last week, people using the Google Home app flooded Reddit with complaints over smart home products that mysteriously stopped workinglights, cameras, smart plugs, you name it. Those complaints were so numerous, in fact, that Google even bothered to address them and do better. Things in the Googleverse were (or are) bad, to say the least. But just because theyre bad right now doesnt mean they cant get worseand worse they may still get. For Google, that is.
As it turns out, Googles overtures about fixing its smart home app and doing better may not be enough for people, and all of that pushback may actually result in a good, old-fashioned class-action lawsuit.
Kaplan Gore has begun investigating a possible class action against Google LLC for failing to remedy increasing problems with its Google Home smart home service, the law firm Kaplan Gore said in a statement. Unfortunately, many users have reported functionality issues with Google Home and associated Google and/or Nest devices, resulting in commands not being recognized or properly executed. Users are reporting that they are experiencing these issues despite their devices having previously functioned normally and despite having a stable internet connection.
Kaplan Gore also has a form for any users experiencing those issues and is asking them to fill out some information and join a class action. In the immortal words of crime-fighting cartoon dog Scooby-Doo, ru-roh.
On one hand, its wild that a company as titanic and well-resourced as Google let its smart home app get to the point of being the subject of a possible class-action lawsuit, but on the otherif youve been using Google Assistant for a while nowit feels long overdue. Google Assistant has steadily gotten worse over the years, and just about anyone using it on a daily basis has noticed. Even simple prompts for turning your lights on or off feel hit and miss. That makes recent issues in the Google Home app feel even more egregious, especially since those issues prevented many from using smart products in their homes entirely.
According to loads of complaints on Reddit, Google Home has been so broken that some users have reported being unable to even turn their smart lights on and off properly. And its not just lights; all kinds of smart devices have been swept up, including other speakers and even (disconcertingly) cameras and smart doorbells. If youre experiencing similar issues, by the way, you can try pulling open the Google Home app and tapping Settings in the bottom-right corner, then tap Works with Google, and a list of your synced apps should show up. If theyre no longer synced, re-sync the app by finding it under Add new. If theyre still synced and not working, unsync the app by tapping on the icon and then tapping Unlink account. After that, you can try syncing once more and hope that it works.
Even if that fixes your problem, it may not do much to fix your overall satisfaction with using the Google Home app to control all your internet-connected products. And if thats the case, I guess theres now potentially some kind of legal recourse to get some revenge. Whether any of this will be enough blowback to compel Google to step its shit up remains to be seen, but clearly screaming at your stupid Google-branded smart speaker isnt getting us anywhere.
