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Google Home Speakers and Chromecast Are Down Worldwide, Company Confirms (washingtonpost.com)

Posted by msmash on from the internet-of-things dept.

"Sorry, something went wrong. Try again in a few seconds." That's the response that Google smart speaker users around the world heard Wednesday when they asked their devices to play music, get the weather or even respond to its "Hey, Google" prompt. From a report: Google confirmed there's a problem with both their smart speakers and the Chromecast, the plug-in video casting dongle for televisions. While the company did not say how many people are affected or what caused the issue, it did confirm it's working on a fix. "We're aware of an issue affecting some Google Home and Chromecast users. We're investigating the issue and working on a solution," Google said in a statement. Google Home and Chromecast owners started reporting issues to Google early Wednesday morning, according to online help forums for both devices. Devices affected by the problem have lost their normal functions.

3 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. It was to be expected but... by Teun · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That the home speakers need net access to slurp your data was to be expected.
    But as someone that contemplated (past tense) getting a Chromecast I am still surprised the damn thing can't stream from laptop or phone to the TV without accessing Google.

    --
    "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
  2. Why Chromecast? by klingens · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I understand that internet-of-shit things like Google Home cannot work when the server end which does the actual speech rec is down. That's why no one sane buys such crap after Nest. And whoever still buys it deserves anything he gets.

    However, Chromecast ist a doodad for my TV so my Android Smartphone or Chrome browser can push whatever is on their screen to my big TV, right? This is a cheapo 5cent ARM CPU with 500MB of RAM and a wireless adapter. Basically a small step up from a ESP8266. Why would this need an Internet connection to a mothership? No speech rec or similar. What for? It's by definition in my LAN/WLAN only. Can someone explain this to someone else who owns neither a chromecast nor a spying microphone?

    1. Re:Why Chromecast? by 110010001000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Google uses the internet connection for transmitting data back to them about your device, your media, really anything they want. What they collect changes regularly and is used for marketing and profiling purposes.