Many people across the country have already adopted the use of smart speakers to control most of the smart appliances and several functions within their homes. Some do have access to a strong internet infrastructure, which means that most have become very reliant on having things done for them quickly and automatically.

However, the recent Google Home outage, albeit a brief one, was likely wake up call for Google and other manufacturers, as it had pointed out one Fatal Flaw with their current systems.

Useless smart speakers

During the outage that all started around June 3, a lot of users were basically unable to use their Google Home speakers.

When awakened with the phrase, "Ok Google" or "Hey Google," the assistant merely responded with an error message that either said "Hmm, something went wrong. Try again in a few seconds,” or “There was a glitch. Try again in a few seconds.”

Minor issue

Users immediately began to post their complaints on social media and on Google's own Help Forum. While most were inconvenienced by the issue, some were a little bit more dramatic regarding how the outage had affected them and their tasks. A good number of smart homes are now being fully controlled by smart speakers, which includes tasks like turning on lights, television sets, and even starting up the car. Fortunately, it hasn't yet come to a point where the virtual assistants have control over things like security systems, baby monitors, or other critical functions.

If that were the case, then the outage would have caused a bigger problem.

Dependence on the cloud

As of the moment, Google has yet to fully reveal the cause of the outage. The company was, fortunately, able to get the Google Home device up and running again in a matter hours, but the issue itself has now revealed a fatal problem with how the Smart Speaker is set up.

Virtual assistants such as Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa are still pretty dependent on a stable internet connection and being able to access their respective servers to fully function. This means that in the event of an outage, the devices are basically useless.

Android co-creator Andy Rubin previously mentioned that a truly functional smart speaker should be able to perform critical tasks natively.

The built-in artificial intelligence should still be able to function in some way despite not being able to connect to the cloud. Rubin has been using this argument to create a new hype for his company's own smart speaker, called the Essential Home, which should be coming out in the market very soon.
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