One of the worst things that can happen to devices is suddenly finding them bricked just because you updated to the latest version. Some Google Home users who are enrolled in the Preview Program have apparently found themselves in this situation as their smart speakers have become unresponsive to the Ok Google / Hey Google trigger phrases. The culprit seems to be the latest software update for the original Google Home and until Google gives a patch to fix this, it might be best to sit and wait it out or experiment with other supposed fixes.
Android Authority shares that users on Reddit and Google forums started complaining that their original Google Home smart speakers started becoming unresponsive after the software update and when the LED indicator started flashing orange. Google has not given an official statement yet but it looks like the update brought an error when the speaker tries to reconnect to the saved WiFi network, which means your device becomes essentially useless.
While some have tried doing a factory reset and succeeded, some are still experiencing the issue even after that. Another method that has been successful for some is disabling the home Wifi network and then unplugging and replugging Google Home. After that, do the factory reset and wait until it finishes booting before attempting to reconnect it to your Home app. When it asks to connect to the Internet, that’s when you turn on your WiFi.
Some have had success with this method and others had to repeat the process. But in some cases, it has actually made the situation worse so the best advice would still be to wait for Google’s official fix for the issue. Hopefully, that’s forthcoming even if we haven’t heard anything from them yet.
Something similar happened to Google Home devices last year but there was no actual fix provided for that. Google had to replace the devices for affected users. Hopefully, this is not the case with this new issue and that another software update, this time a better one, would be enough to fix this error.
