Some Google Home Speakers caught downloading hundreds of gigs of data
A bug in some Google Home speakers is causing devices to download hundreds of gigabytes of data, potentially impacting users with limited internet plans. Google has acknowledged the issue and is currently rolling out a firmware fix.
Why it matters
This highlights the risks of 'always-on' smart home devices and the potential for software bugs to cause significant financial or service-related harm to consumers.
Some Google Home Speaker owners are currently experiencing an issue in which hundreds of gigabytes of data are being continuously downloaded to their device in the background. The bug, reported by 9to5Google and several Reddit users over the last week, may be caused by the speakers failing to correctly download and install a firmware update, with one Redditor finding that his device was consuming more than 200GB per day.
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