That's A Wrap My Friends, Say Goodbye

***This article is done tongue-in-cheek. Please exhaust every effort you can before you just throw your device away. You can scroll down to the bottom to find links to contact Google and have them walk through several steps to determine if your device is beyond repair.***

I have several smart speakers (and that a generous use of the word smart) in my home.

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Two Amazon Echo (Alexa) devices and I HAD two Google Home Minis.

Someone decided to go KAPUT on me the other morning and honestly, I had no idea what was going on.

I have an Echo and a Mini upstairs in my bedroom. They are my alarm clocks and so much more. Folks ask, why do you have one of each? Because each one does different things in different way. Yes they are both smart speakers but they are very different. I like my Echo for all the Amazon stuff. When my packages arrive I get alerts and notifications. It's a little more intuitive. And controls my smart plugs.

My Google Home Mini is Google in a smart speaker form. I have an android phone. My music streaming is YouTube Music. My news routine when I wake up in the morning is better through my Mini.

Or at least it was.

Google Home Mini Go Bye-Bye

My primary alarm is the Echo. After it goes off I stop it and my next step is to say, "OK Google, Good Morning". That's the prompt to get my day started, read me my calendar stuff, the weather, and then go into the news.

But not yesterday morning.

I proceeded with the OK Google and I got radio silence.

So I stumble out of bed and over to the speaker and I see this.

McConnell Adams TSM Lansing
McConnell Adams TSM Lansing
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Usually there's four dots but I got two right in the middle. I'm tapping the sides to adjust the volume or get some form of acknowledgement but nada. I unplugged it and plugged it back in.

Two dots. Mocking me.

So I did what anyone else would do.

I Googled about my Google smart speaker.

From reddit I got the following:

It might be the GH (Google Home) equivalent of the red ring of death, as far as I know nobody has managed to fix it and they needed to be replaced.

Red Ring of Death = how your X-box from back in the day died. See also "Blue Screen of Death".

It's basically a brick now. A paperweight.

Time to replace it.

I went further down the rabbit hole and found my way HERE.

It ended up being a software issue. Google just sent me a new one to replace it. (support.google.com)

I was also directed to contact Google here and let them know about the issue.

So BEFORE YOU TOSS IT, I do suggest you contact them and see if they can help you. They have a call and chat feature (which is pretty fast). Walk through every fix with them before you pitch it.

Everything I read said they were aware of the problem and were working on a fix.

Who knows. They might be able to walk you through a fix or YOU might get a free replacement.

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