Google Nest Hubs reportedly bricked by update — what to do now
If your Google Nest Hub is down for the count, you're not alone. Several users are reporting their smart displays have been bricked after it appears Google rolled out an update to the Nest Hub and Hub Max overnight on Friday.
As first spotted by 9to5Google, dozens of posts on Reddit and the Google Nest Community forum came in over the weekend complaining about the issue. Google Nest Hubs are programmed to automatically reboot and install the latest updates every night. But it seems that, after the latest update, impacted users are seeing their smart displays stuck in an infinite loop on the "Updating" screen, with the progress bar frozen at 99% alongside the typical "Hang tight, this will take a few minutes" message.
Some say their Google Nest Hub has been stuck on this screen for hours. The immediate go-to solution of unplugging and plugging back in the power cable doesn't seem to fix the issue. Rather, it resets the progress back to 0%, but when the count reaches 99% the Google Nest Hub's screen freezes just as it did before.
Stranger still, the devices reportedly remain fully responsive to voice commands, but will respond with an error message if asked about the ongoing issue with the screen.
"Device is fully responsive but stuck on the update screen. I can ask it questions and it responds but anything to do with the screen it simply says something went wrong," one affected user wrote on Reddit.
How to fix your Google Nest Hub
Unfortunately, many impacted users are saying that factory resetting their Google Nest Hubs doesn't fix the problem. Doing so restarts the counter, but the device remains stuck in an infinite update loop. One user on Google's community forum said they tested it out with different routers to see if the Wi-Fi connection was the problem, but no dice.
One Reddit user had some luck, though: They said their Google Nest Hub finally started working again after a factory reset, but only once they cleared the caches of any apps connected to the device and unlinked all unnecessary apps.
We'll keep our fingers crossed that Google pushes out an official patch to fix this issue on affected devices soon. In the meantime, you can try contacting Google Support for the appropriate next steps via the Google Nest Community forum.
In our tests, the Google Nest Hub ranked as one of our favorite Google Home compatible devices, but it's far from the only smart display out there. The Amazon Echo Show 10 and the Facebook Portal also made our list of the best smart displays you can buy. And if you're in the market for more top-tier smart-home devices, consider checking out these three we can't live without.
