Google Home Mini received software patch to stop it recording everything
By Robin-Leigh Chetty 11 October 2017 | Categories: newsOne of several new devices that Google unveiled last week, the Google Home Mini has run into a rather significant snag. Artem Russakovskii of Android Police reported that his Home Mini review unit would frequently and randomly record sounds and transit them to Google. The problem appears to be the sensitivity with which the Google Home Mini was listening out for "hotwords", misinterpreting them and then beginning to record.
Google has acknowledged the issue, and has since released a software patch in order to address the problem. The fix though, involves removing one feature from the Home Mini, with a touch of the top portion of the speaker no longer launching the Assistant. Now users will have to use the "wake" word in order to activate the Assistant.
"We learned of an issue impacting a small number of Google Home Mini devices that could cause the touch mechanism to behave incorrectly. We rolled out an update on October 7 to mitigate the issue. If you're still having issues, please feel free to contact Google Support at 1-855-971-9121 to get a replacement Google Home Mini," noted the company in an official statement.
Furthermore, Google added that the issue was limited to devices given at last week's Made by Google event, and assured that devices currently on pre-order would not suffer similar problems.
With the Google Home Mini set to land in select regions on 19 October, one wonders what would have happened if this random recording incident was not stumbled upon. Whether or not the Google Home Max has a similar ailment, is unclear for now.
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