Recently, a few of us at The Verge who use Google Assistant devices in our homes started complaining about the whole “Hey Google / OK Google” thing. We all had the same experience: you’d say something like, “Hey Google, set a timer for 12 minutes,” and the expected “Timer set” response would come from a device somewhere else in the house.
In my home, we have that problem all the time. We have three Google Assistant devices (not including our phones), and I can’t count how many times we’d be sitting in the living room, would say, “Hey Google, play The Great British Baking Show from Netflix,” and somewhere above my head, in the second floor bedroom, a voice would explain that it can’t do that.
What is the issue here? Apparently, the voice…
