The short version
- 01Say the hotword and watch for the LED dots to spin or blink.
- 02Find the microphone switch — back on Nest Audio, side on Mini, back on displays.
- 03Say 'Hey Google, repeat the question' to check it understood you.
- 04Confirm other devices on the same Wi-Fi have working internet.
- 05Adjust hotword sensitivity if it responds only sometimes.
- 06Test a failing smart device in its own manufacturer app.
Start here
Say “Hey Google” and watch the lights, not the silence
The LED dots on top of a Nest speaker spin or blink when it hears the hotword, and on a Google Home speaker the ring glows solid white. That single observation splits the problem: lights that respond mean the microphone is on and the device heard you, so the failure is downstream in understanding, network or account. No lights at all means it is not hearing you — and the first thing to check is the physical microphone switch, which is a hardware slider rather than a setting.
Applies to: Google Nest Mini, Nest Audio, Google Home, Home Mini, Home Max, Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max. The microphone switch is a physical control on every model but sits in a different place on each, and section 2 names the common ones.
Do the lights react when you speak?
A Google speaker that ignores you can be muted at the hardware switch, off the network, unable to understand the request, or working perfectly while the thing you asked it to control is broken. They all present as silence. The lights tell you whether the device heard the hotword at all, which divides the problem in half before you touch the app.
No lights at all when you speak
Is the physical microphone switch off?
Check the switchLights react but nothing happens
Did it understand the request?
Ask it to repeatIt only responds sometimes
Is the hotword sensitivity too low?
Adjust sensitivityIt answers but can’t control anything
Is it the speaker or the device you asked about?
Test the device1. The lights are the diagnosis
Google documents the behaviour precisely: the LED dots on top of your speaker spin or blink when you say “Hey Google”, and on a Google Home speaker the light ring glows solid white. Stand a normal distance away, say the hotword once, and watch rather than listen. What the lights do is more informative than whether you get an answer.
Lights that respond prove a great deal at once — the device has power, the microphone is enabled, and the hotword detection is working. Everything that could still be wrong is downstream: it may have misheard the request, lost its network connection, or be perfectly fine while the smart device you asked about is offline. Sections 3 and 5 cover those.
No light response at all is a much narrower problem. Either the microphone is switched off at the hardware, or the device is not powered, or it is too far away or too masked by noise to hear you. Google's first checklist is exactly that: make sure the speaker is powered on, plugged into a wall outlet, and that the microphone is not muted.
Check power at the wall rather than trusting a switched extension lead, and use the power adapter that came with the device. An underpowered speaker can light up and then misbehave under load.
2. The microphone switch is physical, and it moves
This is the most common cause of a completely unresponsive Google speaker and it cannot be fixed in the app, because it is a hardware slider that physically disconnects the microphone. No voice command can undo it — which is the point of the design, and also why asking the speaker to turn its microphone back on can never work.
The location differs by model and Google lists them. On Google Nest Audio the switch is on the back of the device, next to the power cord. On Nest Mini 2nd generation and Home Mini 1st generation it is on the side. On Nest displays it is on the back. It is a small slider and it is easy to catch while moving a device, dusting a shelf, or plugging something in.
When the microphone is off, the device usually shows a distinct light pattern — commonly orange or amber — rather than staying dark, so a speaker showing a steady colour it does not normally show is worth suspecting here first. Slide the switch back and the lights should return to their usual idle state.
Nest Audio
Back of the device, next to the power cord.
Nest Mini (2nd gen) / Home Mini (1st gen)
On the side of the device.
Nest displays
On the back of the display.
3. When it hears you but does nothing useful
If the lights respond and the answer is wrong or absent, the next question is whether it understood you. Google suggests a direct test: say “Hey Google, repeat the question” to check that the assistant understood you correctly, and if it is still not recognising the question, speak more slowly or try a different question. That turns a vague failure into a specific one.
A device that consistently mishears is usually placed badly rather than faulty. Speakers pushed against a wall, tucked into a bookshelf, or sitting next to a noisy appliance pick up reflections and background noise that mask your voice. Moving it a foot into open space is a real fix rather than a platitude, and it costs nothing to test.
Also confirm it can reach the internet, because almost everything the assistant does requires it. Google's guidance includes making sure your phone or tablet is on the same Wi-Fi network or Google Account as the speaker. A speaker that hears the hotword, lights up, and then says nothing is very often offline rather than deaf.
4. Intermittent response is a sensitivity setting
A speaker that responds most of the time and ignores you at others is a different problem from one that never responds, and Google provides a setting for it rather than expecting you to shout. If your speaker often has trouble activating when you say “Hey Google” or “Ok Google”, you can adjust how sensitive the voice assistant is to the hotword.
Raise the sensitivity if it misses you, and lower it if it triggers on the television. The trade-off is real in both directions, so change it one step and live with it for a day rather than pushing it to an extreme. Households with several speakers also compete: the nearest one usually answers, so a request that seems ignored may have been picked up by a device in another room.
Distance and room acoustics interact with this more than people expect. A speaker that works from two metres and fails from five is behaving normally for its microphone array, and sensitivity will only partly compensate. If the failures follow where you are standing rather than what you are saying, that is the explanation.
5. When the speaker works and the request fails
A speaker that lights up, answers questions and tells you the weather is fully functional, so a failure to control a light or a plug is a problem with that device or its link — not with the speaker. Test the smart device from its own manufacturer app first: if that fails too, the speaker was never involved and you are troubleshooting the wrong thing.
The other common cause here is naming. Assistants match spoken names to device names exactly, so a light renamed in the manufacturer's app but not re-synced, or two devices with similar names, produces a request that is heard perfectly and acted on incorrectly or not at all. Checking the device's name in the Home app and using it verbatim resolves a surprising share of these.
Account linking expires, which produces a service that worked for months and then stopped for no visible reason. If one brand of device has stopped responding while others still work, re-linking that account in the Home app is the targeted fix rather than resetting the speaker.
A speaker that answers general questions but controls nothing has cleared itself entirely. That is a smart home problem, and the speaker is the messenger.
6. Restart, reset, and what to tell support
Work up in order of cost. Google's own step is a power cycle: disconnect the power cable from the power source and reconnect it. That clears most transient states and loses nothing, and it is worth doing before anything in the app.
If a speaker still will not respond after a power cycle with the microphone switch confirmed on, a factory reset is the last software step — and it is genuinely destructive, removing the device from your home, its settings and its linked services, so you set it up again from scratch. Do it only once the switch, the power, the network and the sensitivity have all been ruled out.
When you contact Google, describe the lights. Say whether the LEDs respond when you say the hotword, where the microphone switch is on your model and whether it is on, whether the speaker answers a general question like the time, whether other devices on the same Wi-Fi have internet, and whether a power cycle changed anything. Those five answers separate a muted microphone from a network fault from a speaker that is working and being asked to control something broken.
Frequently asked questions
Why won’t my Google Home respond to “Hey Google”?
Say the hotword and watch the lights rather than listening. The LED dots spin or blink when a Nest speaker hears you, and a Google Home speaker's ring glows solid white. Lights that respond mean it heard you and the fault is downstream. No lights at all means the microphone switch — a physical slider on the device — is probably off.
Where is the microphone switch on a Google Nest speaker?
It depends on the model. On Nest Audio it's on the back next to the power cord; on Nest Mini 2nd gen and Home Mini 1st gen it's on the side; on Nest displays it's on the back. It's a hardware slider that physically disconnects the microphone, which is why no voice command can turn it back on — you have to move the switch.
My Google speaker lights up but doesn’t answer. Why?
It heard the hotword, so the microphone is fine. Say “Hey Google, repeat the question” to check whether it understood you — that's Google's own test. If it understood and still says nothing, it's probably offline: almost everything the assistant does needs internet, and a speaker that lights up and goes quiet is usually off the network rather than deaf.
Why does my Google speaker only respond sometimes?
That's a sensitivity or placement problem rather than a fault. Google lets you adjust how sensitive the assistant is to the hotword — raise it if you're being missed, lower it if the television keeps triggering it. Also move the speaker out of a bookshelf or away from a wall; reflections and background noise mask your voice more than distance does.
Google Assistant answers questions but won’t control my lights. Why?
The speaker has cleared itself — it heard you, understood you and reached the internet. The fault is the smart device or its account link. Test that device in its own manufacturer app first. If it works there, check its name in the Home app and use it verbatim, and consider re-linking the account, which expires and produces exactly this.
Should I factory reset my Google Home?
Only as a last step. Try a power cycle first — Google's own step is to disconnect the power cable and reconnect it, which clears most transient states and loses nothing. A factory reset removes the device from your home along with its settings and linked services, so rule out the microphone switch, power, network and sensitivity before going there.
Sources and review notes
Checked on . Compiled by Glitchary from Google’s Nest and Home support documentation. Microphone switch positions and light behaviour differ between speaker and display models, and the Home app changes frequently — check Google’s current article for your device. Guidance on device naming and account re-linking reflects general practice rather than Google documentation. Glitchary is independent of Google.