A report from Variety says that the publication discovered a few milliseconds’ worth of latency when playing sound through the AUX port of the new Google Home Max, and Google has confirmed that it is aware of the issue. The latency won’t have much of an effect on most users; listening to music, syncing two Google Home Max units, and even using the Google Home Max as a speaker for gaming or watching movies should all work without a hitch. Musicians and DJs, however, will find this problem to be a deal breaker. Using a Google Home Max as a studio monitor, recording buddy, or a speaker at live gigs are all things that can’t be done until this problem is fixed. Audio engineering, movie production, and any other uses of audio equipment that require low or nonexistent latency are obviously also a no go.
The issue is unique to the Google Home Max, since it’s the only one in the Google Home family to sport an audio input jack. It also has the most generous speaker setup, and a complicated set of circuits and wires to deliver sound to it. At this time, it’s not known exactly what part of that setup is actually causing the delay issues. Google is aware of the problem, so if it can be fixed with a software update, it likely will be in the near future. Naturally, no exact date has been announced for a fix just yet. It’s worth noting that one use case that this could have a small effect on, piping music into one Google Home Max to cast it across multiple units, is not currently available, and should be coming some time in early 2018.
The Google Home Max first dropped in the United States on December 11 of 2017, and has not made its way to other markets just yet. A single unit will cost you $399, and its claim to fame is the massive dual speakers housed inside, bringing loud, premium sound to the smart speaker space. It can synchronize with the Google Home Mini and regular Google Home, as well as other Google Home Max units.