Adding third-party smart home products to Google Home has been broken recently. With users unable to add new products to existing connections, and linking partner accounts within the Google Home app.
If you just picked up some new smart lights, or any other smart home product, and were looking to attach it to Google Home, well you’re out of luck -at least for now. You can link your account through the Google Home app, but after you “authorize” it, you get a refreshed page showing the accounts you can add. The account was not added. You can do this as many times as you want, it still won’t be added to your Google Home. The troubling part here is that it does not tell you it was not added, nor gives you an error.
This is unfortunate, and also annoying for those that just got some new smart bulbs to add to their home. As they’ll have to resort to using the bulb’s app, instead of Google Home or their voice. And it renders one of the more impressive features of GE’s newer bulbs, useless. Which is the ability to set it up completely within the Google Home app – leaving the GE app out. But since this functionality isn’t working, that feature won’t either.
Some Reddit users are also experiencing the issue with the Google Home app, though there doesn’t appear to be a workaround or a fix yet for this issue. That means that if you are looking to re-link or link a new account, or add some new products, you’re out of luck, at least for now.
Google has not yet said that they are aware of the issue, but it has been reported. This is hopefully something that Google can fix pretty quickly. Though at this point, it’s hard to tell whether this is an app issue, or perhaps a network issue on Google’s end. If it is just a network issue, Google should be able to fix it on the server and have it working again in no time.
Not to many users have complained about this not working. The guess regarding that is the fact that many people are not adding new smart home products all that often. Typically you add them into the app, and then you are done until you’ve bought more to add to your home. It’s not a feature that is used often, but it is a feature that is used to control your home with your voice.
Without the ability to add smart home products to your Google Home, it renders the Google Assistant virtually useless. Sure you can still use it to ask questions, play music and such. But many use the Google Assistant in speakers and smart displays to control their home. And if they are unable to add smart home products to the Google Home, then it’s useless to them. Though, it’s worth pointing out that products that were already added are still working just fine. The only issue here is not being able to add new products to Google Home.