While there were understandable fears of radio diminishing in popularity with the emergence of newer media types, especially music streaming services, there’s still a considerable percentage of the population that continue to use radio services likeSiriusXM,TuneIn, Pandora, and others. Google understood this notion pretty well, bringing services like iHeartRadio toGoogle Home way back in 2017, with internet radio making its way to the appin 2019.
However, the ability to play radio via Google Home or through Assistant commands was broken earlier this week. Google later acknowledged the bug, confirming that the functionality was broken for several users. We have some good news coming your way now, with Google saying it has patched this annoying issue, letting you get back to enjoying your favorite free or paid radio stations via Google Home orAssistant routines.
When trying to play a radio station, such as iHeartRadio, through a voice command, Assistant would respond by saying “I looked for iHeartRadio, but it either isn’t available or can’t be played right now.” Meanwhile, some users received the “Sorry, I didn’t understand” error, as 9to5Googlefound out. The originalGoogle support page, which acknowledged the radio outage on Assistant, has since been updated to reflect the fix, with Google saying that “all radio stations are back online.”
It seems like the issue has been around for a while now, with 9to5 uncovering aReddit threadon the Google Home subreddit dating back to February. Additionally, a post on the company’sNest forumfrom mid-January also talks about the Assistant radio glitch.
Google didn’t say what caused the issue in the first place, though it’s clear that the outage was not just limited to one region. Nevertheless, people who were hamstrung by the absence of radio on their Google-brandedsmart speakers, displays, or any otherAndroid phones, can now rest easy.
The Google Home team has been quite busy recently, adding new features to the mix, including support for more devicesunder the Climate tab, such as air conditioners, fans, heaters, humidifiers, and dehumidifiers. Separately,another updatefinally enabled users to control a wide array ofsmart home devicesand appliances, which were previously limited to view-only under the Home app’s Devices tab.
