Whether you’re relaxing on your couch after a long day or finishing up lunch in the kitchen or you just want to take a break from work or studying, listening to podcasts on your smart speaker is probably one of your favorite companions. All you have to do is tell Google Assistant what podcast you want to listen to and it should start playing without you having to lift a finger. Well, that is, if it’s working properly. But it looks like there’s a bug now that plays a different podcast entirely.
9 to 5 Google says there are several complaints on various forums that say that when they ask their Google Home and Nest speakers to play a certain podcast, it plays a different one even though the name is nowhere close to it. The suspected bug seems to affect those speakers only but there are also owners of Smart Displays that are reporting the same thing. Some examples shared is asking it to play NPR Politics Podcast brings The Daily while telling Google Assistant you want to listen to Up First will bring you All Songs Considered.
Of course, there are workarounds to that. If you’re using a Smart Display, you can go to the Media tab on your screen and then select the podcast or an episode recommendation. You can also open the Google Podcasts on your phone, choose the podcast or episode, and then cast it to your smart speaker. But of course, the convenience of just giving out a voice command to play your podcast has been removed in that scenario.
As for Google, there’s no official statement yet from them about this. Although in the Nest Help forum, a product expert says they will escalate this to the Google team. The expert also encouraged users to leave feedback through voice command by saying “Hey Google, share feedback” and then record your complaint about the mistakes it’s making with your podcasts. Hopefully, they act on it quickly.
In the meantime, you’ll probably have to go “old school” and just play your podcast manually until this gets fixed. If ever there’s an update from Google, we’ll let you know.