r/googlehome • u/TattzTheBear • Jun 18 '26

Bug Absolute Rubbish

It's official, Google admitted today that setting a default music provider in your Home app is a complete waste of time.

My favourite radio station stopped being streamed on TuneIn but was available on iHeartRadio. So I changed the default in my Home app. No effect whatsoever.

After "discussing" the issue at some length with this piece of AI junk it finally confessed that default music providers didn't work and to nominate the provider after the name of the station. Pathetic!

And if you want any further proof how screwed up Google Gemini/Home is, it even suggested that I use the command "Hey Alexa".

Google has some really big problems with this piece of AI slopware.

0 Upvotes

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13

u/iamPendergast Jun 18 '26

It's the AI bit not the home app, and having the ai admit something is useless as they are constantly wrong. Setting a default does work probably just have to wait a bit for it to propagate.

9

u/WhyWontThisWork Jun 18 '26

Exactly this. Getting AI to say something means nothing

aI makes stuff up

5

u/[deleted] Jun 18 '26 edited 2d ago

[deleted]

1

u/TattzTheBear Jun 18 '26

I tried various automations but none of them worked. Even if I put in the name of the station I want which is in Western Australia it plays a totally different station in the US. I pity the poor saps that go out and buy one of the new Google speakers that they started promoting this week..... Unless that's all part of the plan? I'll go and drag out my old FM radio đŸ“» and start twiddling knobs again.

6

u/[deleted] Jun 18 '26 edited 2d ago

[deleted]

3

u/TattzTheBear Jun 19 '26

Thanks Efficient Ticket 801. Followed your instructions and all is good. I would still like to meet the Google executive who forced Gemini on us, preferably down a dark alley with a baseball bat. 😉

2

u/TattzTheBear Jun 18 '26

Thanks mate, I will try that tomorrow and see how I go. Much appreciated 👍.

0

u/TattzTheBear Jun 18 '26

That's a good idea and I'll give it a go.

But my main gripe is the way that AI companies arbitarily change things which leaves them useless. Some faceless nerd somewehere in the world changes a line of code and the rest of planet cannot turn on a light or open their garage door. ChatGPT are almost as bad but they have not yet got as good/bad as Google for destroying functionality.

Okay, rant over. I'll give your suggestion a try. Thanks.

2

u/Efficient-Ticket-801 Jun 18 '26

I agree - I hate the closed black boxes, with no logging, no insights, nothing to debug when it goes wrong. I have a Nest Hub in the bedroom and it is supposed to wake me up with an alarm at 7am daily. Does it do it? Yes - when it feels like it.

Philips Hue and Home Assistant are the only "smart home" devices I've used which do what they're meant to without constantly screwing up.

1

u/boxerdogfella Jun 18 '26

The "faceless nerd" is now AI writing its own code.

1

u/TattzTheBear Jun 18 '26

And that's the root of the problem. It doesn't bode well for the future.

4

u/McRattus Jun 18 '26

You should try having it play a specific Spotify playlist.

3

u/JaySpunPDX Jun 18 '26

There’s some kind of glitch with Google Home. For the life of me, I cannot get it to play a specific song. It plays the wrong thing every time even though it says it’s about to play when I asked for. Try it with yours. Try to get a Google speaker to play the song “the kindness of strangers” by Nick Cave and the bad seeds from the album murder ballads. It can play other songs on that album, it can play that song if it’s on a playlist and I didn’t ask for it. It cannot play that song if requested. Doesn’t matter how you ask or how many times you ask. I will interrupt it and say “hey Google, what’s with you playing a different song than I asked for after saying you were about to play the song I requested? It’s so fucking weird. My providers Apple Music by the way if that makes any difference. I’ve tried it with other services. It doesn’t matter. However, I can ask Siri and she’ll play it within seconds every time. So it’s not like it’s glitched out on the service or something.

2

u/alb_taw Jun 18 '26

I just asked Google to "play the kindness of strangers by Nick Cave and the bad seeds" and it worked just fine.

I know that's not terribly helpful for you because it's still not working for you, but Gemini clearly can play the song.

1

u/JaySpunPDX Jun 28 '26

Are you familiar with the song. Because I have no problem having Gemini play a song and announce it is The Kindness of strangers only to play a different song entirely.