Google has decided to remove the top touch function on Home Mini to remove a privacy bug. On Wednesday, the company has announced that it has decided to permanently dump the top touch functionality after discovering a bug which sends the sounds playing on Home Mini to the Google servers.
Artem Russakovskii, the founder of Android Police, first observed this uncertain behavior of Home Mini when the device is waking up thousands of times in a day after interpreting a phantom touch to send the data recorded to Google. He reported Google about the strange behavior and Google immediately addressed the issue and said: “We have learned of an issue impacting a small number of Google Home Minis that could cause the touch mechanism to behave incorrectly.”
Although there are very few cases noted with such kind of behavior, Google has decided to dump the functionality considering the privacy of users into account.
Google will release a software update over the weekend to fix the bug. While speaking about the software update Google said: “We take user privacy and product quality concerns very seriously.” “Although we only received a few reports of this issue, we want people to have complete peace of mind while using Google Home Mini.”
Earlier the Google Home Mini can be controlled by “Ok Google” voice command or by long pressing the device on top. After the software update, the users have to use only the voice command to talk to Google Assistant. In spite of the software update, the smart speaker does all the functionalities that it is designed to do.
Google released Home Mini along with Home Max and other products at the Made By Google Event on October 4th. The Home Mini will be available in three colors “Coral”, “Charcoal” and “chalk” which costs $49. The pre-orders started from October 4 and will be available at offline retailers from October 19.
