A few days ago, the Google team announced that it had decided to make changes to the management of its smart speakers following a ruling issued against it by the US International Trade Commission as part of a legal dispute with Sonos.
Well, in the past few hours the Mountain View giant has kicked off the release of an update of the Google Home app with which it implements what it has pre-announced, worsening a little what is the user experience offered as far as it concerns the volume management of loudspeaker groups.
The new version of Google Home will not appeal to users
The new release of the Google Home app is 2.47.79.5 and with it the team of developers has removed the ability to manage the volume of speaker groups using the volume button of the smartphone while in the Media screen (once the update, in fact, this operation will change the volume of the phone).
Recall that previously in this situation it was possible to change the audio level of a smart speaker or an entire group of speakers while now it will be necessary to take advantage of the special virtual cursor in the Google Home app.
In practice, if until now changing the volume required a couple of taps, the operation now becomes a bit more complicated and requires the user’s attention, making the experience less pleasant.
At present it is possible to avoid this change by not installing the latest update of the Google Home app but this alternative solution will probably be temporary and the Mountain View giant will implement the new system for all users.
However, the most important aspect of the story is that the Speaker Groups functionality will continue to be supported, albeit a little was less comfortable to exploit.