Technology is an incredibly wonderful thing. But it also can be an incredibly frustrating thing. If you’ve been having issues with your wifi connection, the problem might be your Chromecast devices. There have now been multiple reports of users losing WiFi connections when Google devices with the “Cast” feature, like Chromecast and Google Home devices, are added to a user’s network. Initially, these same reports suggested that TP-Link Archer C7 routers were the only ones affected by the issue, but subsequent reports have noted that ASUS, Linksys, Netgear and Synology routers may also be impacted.
TP-Link has issued firmware fixes for the problem and explained in a statement that the issue lies in how these devices send information to routers when they’re awakened from their sleep states. Typically, devices like this send MDNS multicast discovery packets to routers at 20-second intervals in order to keep a live connection. They have discovered that the devices will sometimes broadcast a large amount of these packets at very high speeds in a short amount of time. This typically occurs when the device is awakened from it’s “sleep” state and could exceed more than 10,000 packets. The longer the device is in “sleep”, the larger this packet burst will be. This ends up overloading the router and can affect your wireless connectivity. Rebooting is an option, but when you have to do that over and over again, you’re going to get annoyed pretty quickly.
Google has told multiple news outlets that they are working quickly in order to come up with a solution to this. But should they be moving faster? Or should this have even been an issue, to begin with? If you have an Archer router, then you can actually get it fixed sooner by heading over to the TP-Link website. I guess the big question I have is whether or not this is going to hurt Google. I’m leaning towards no, but I still have to ask and think about the question.
The reason I’m leaning towards no is that it’s Google. It’s like they’re unstoppable in many ways. They do such a good job with anything that they develop, it’s kind of a no-brainer, in my opinion. That said, Amazon’s smart speakers account for 75% of the market, whereas Google only has about 25%. Which is really interesting to me. Not because I don’t like my Amazon device or anything like that. But it’s Google! I feel like we blindly follow them for no reason. And I would think that this would be the same.
Or is it because Amazon has more options for these devices. Meaning, they don’t just offer smart speakers, but other products like the Look or Show. They both have TV options, and they both have large and small options when it comes to home speakers, so why is Google not doing as well as Amazon? I don’t think the router issue is going to cause that big of a ripple in the world of smart speakers, but I do wonder what Google will do to compete with Amazon going forward.