Google Smart Home Crumbles: User Frustration & Lawsuit Loom
Google’s smart home ecosystem, once considered a leading platform for voice-controlled devices and integrated home automation, is reportedly experiencing a significant decline, leading to widespread user frustration. Users of Google Home and Google Assistant have voiced concerns across various online forums, citing persistent issues that have rendered core functionalities unreliable.
In recent weeks, numerous reports have emerged detailing critical malfunctions within the Google Home app, preventing users from controlling basic smart home devices such as lights. The severity of these issues prompted a public apology from Anish Kattukaran, a Google representative, on July 23, 2025, acknowledging the “reliability” problems and expressing regret for users’ experiences. Despite this acknowledgment, many users report that the issues have not improved, leading to discussions about a potential class-action lawsuit.
For long-time users of Google’s smart home products, the current state of affairs is not a sudden development but rather the culmination of years of perceived neglect. While Google Assistant was initially lauded for its integration with Google Search and its performance relative to competitors like Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri, its reliability appears to have steadily deteriorated.
User complaints indicate a consistent pattern of decline. One Redditor, posting two months prior to this report, lamented the system’s evolution from “amazing” to “more and more unreliable,” struggling with basic functions like activation, providing accurate information, and even stopping timers. This sentiment is widely echoed, suggesting a systemic issue rather than isolated bugs.
The precise catalyst for this decline remains a subject of speculation. Possible contributing factors include Google’s reported decision to cease collecting and analyzing user voice commands years ago, or a strategic pivot towards large language models (LLMs) and generative AI, potentially diverting resources away from existing smart home platforms. Regardless of the cause, the current dysfunction poses a significant challenge for Google.
This situation unfolds at a time when the broader tech industry anticipates a “golden age” for voice assistants, driven by advancements in LLMs designed to enhance natural language understanding and multi-step command processing. While competitors like Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa+ are also navigating their own development challenges, with Siri facing delays and Alexa+ in early access, the immediate reality for Google’s smart home users is a system struggling with fundamental operations. The future of Google’s smart home ambition and the reliability of its devices remain uncertain, leaving many users hoping for a comprehensive resolution.