Google Home Max To Lose An Important Safety Feature On May 8
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The Google Home Max is not just a regular speaker. It packs some great safety features that you don’t generally find in the mainstream options. For those subscribed to the Nest Aware service, this smart home speaker can alert you of any dangerous sounds by sending notifications to your phone when you’re away. However, the bad news is that the Google Home Max will lose this safety feature starting this May.
Google will discontinue the sound detection feature from the Home Max starting May 8
Folks over at 9to5Google reported that the Google Home Max will lose the sound detection feature on May 8, 2025. This feature uses the built-in microphone of the smart home speaker and can notify you of any danger by detecting sounds of breaking glass or ringing smoke alarms.
Notably, Google will axe this feature only from the Home Max. The company says this critical safety feature will continue to work on other Google devices with a Nest Aware subscription.
The email from Google reads, “Starting May 8, 2025, your Google Home Max will no longer have the sound detection feature as part of your Nest Aware subscription. Sound detection (which alerts you if glass breaking or a smoke/carbon monoxide alarm is heard) will still be supported on your other Google devices with your Nest Aware subscription.”
A possible reason why the company is dropping the feature
Notably, the company hasn’t mentioned any reasons for its plans to remove the safety feature from the Google Home Max. However, it could be related to the old firmware version that the device runs on. Currently, Google Home Max runs on an older firmware version, 1.56.275994.
That’s quite an old firmware version in comparison to 3.75.456944, which the Google Home and original Home Mini run on. Finally, it’s important to note that Google discontinued the Home Max four years ago. However, the fact that it still pushes updates to the device tells why its owners haven’t abandoned it just yet.
