Voice assistants are… not perfect. That’s me being nice. But if I were to cease being nice, I’d probably say something more like “voice assistants suck,” and I think most would agree I’d be justified in saying so. While no voice assistant really manages to escape that criticism, I usually opt for Google Assistant, which—in my experience—is the least sucky. Or it used to be, but after some recent hiccups, I may have to start rethinking that dishonorable distinction.

Last week, Google Assistant users reported that the voice assistant was bordering on broken. Those complaints across Reddit and X were so loud, in fact, that Google itself decided to get out there and address them. Here’s Google’s Director of Product Management, Google Home & Nest, Anish Kattukaran, doing some damage control on X last week.

Hey everyone, I want to acknowledge the recent feedback about Google Assistant reliability on our home devices. I sincerely apologize for what you're experiencing and feeling!

— Anish Kattukaran (@AnishKattukaran) July 23, 2025

Pretty bad, right? Well, unfortunately, those attempts at getting out ahead of problems appear mostly rhetorical, because things somehow have gotten worse, and now Google Home is at the center of what I would describe as a reputation shitstorm. According to way too many people on Reddit, Google Home is so broken that some people are actually unable to even turn their smart lights on and off properly. And it’s not just lights; if Reddit complaints are anything to go off of, it looks like all kinds of smart devices are affected by problems with Google Home, including other speakers and even (disconcertingly) cameras and smart doorbells.

While Google has apparently promised to fix the issues, it looks like, for lots of people, they’ve persisted. A quick scan of the Google Home subreddit reveals that connectivity issues and general issues are still pouring in, with no official announcement from Google. Mileage may vary, but if you’re one of the many unlucky Google Home users having issues with third-party devices, you can pull open your Google Home app and navigate to the settings and see if the connecting app is still synced. To do that, go to Settings in the bottom-right corner, then tap “Works with Google,” and a list of your synced apps should show up. If they’re no longer synced, re-sync the app by finding it under “Add new.” If they’re still synced and not working, unsync the app by tapping on the icon and then tap “Unlink account.” After that, you can try syncing once more and hope that it works.

Obviously, having to do any of this is annoying for lots of reasons. For one, people use the Google Home app and smart products on a daily basis to do things like turn their freaking lights on and off. It’s also frustrating from a more general standpoint, given Google Assistant’s slow erosion over the past few years to the point where some of its core functions have basically broken. To me, this is the clearest indication that voice assistants are in a very bad place, and something needs to be done. That something, if Google, Apple, and Amazon have anything to do with it, will probably be a much-needed dose of AI chatbots like Gemini, but it remains to be seen whether an infusion of a large language model will be enough. The bittersweet news is that it looks like it can’t possibly get any worse, though. On the bright side, Apple must feel pretty good about delaying its promised next-gen Siri. Better late than broken, I say.