Multiple users in Google’s product forum for the Home Max have reported that trying to stream anything like Spotify on them has been crashing their Wi-Fi routers, and many of them who have switched off either their 2.4GHz band or 5GHz band have reported that the issue is gone. The original poster was informed that Google Home devices work best on 5GHz Wi-Fi, and responded not by putting the Google Home Max on 5GHz, but by disabling 2.4GHz. Conversely, one user having the same issue switched off their 5GHz Wi-Fi for testing purposes, and ended up keeping this setup; the problem was gone, and they could still use their legacy devices. Google is apparently aware of the issue and is looking into it.
In forum user Ryan Crowson’s testing, the Google Home Max’s interactions with dual-band routers yielded some interesting results. For starters, whenever the speaker crashed the network, the Home app could still show him all of the compatible devices on the network except the Google Home Max, and said that they needed to be set up. Internet access through the router was not available, but Crowson did not specify whether other devices on the network could still see the router at all. The Google Home Max also re-crashes the network if the router is reset without also resetting the unit. Further in the thread, Crowson went on to report that a factory reset solved the issue for two days, then the Google Home Max reverted to crashing the network whenever it tried to play music or get another speaker or setup in the house to do so. Other users have noted strange behavior from other Home devices on the same network, even when the Google Home Max does not crash the network.
This is the latest in what seems to be a string of Google first-party products malfunctioning and causing consumers grief. Though these issues are, by their very nature, unrelated to recent problems with Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL devices, some consumers may end up thinking that such is the norm for Google, with paying end users experiencing problems normally associated with beta testing.