Google Assistant bug could be draining your phone’s battery

Google's voice assistant is causing serious problems for some Android users. The Google Assistant trigger phrase 'Ok Google' is waking up the wrong devices and leaving the screen on.

Android Police writers have discovered Google Assistant launching on smartphones when it was actually used for other devices like Google Home and Pixel Slate. One incident involves the user talking to Google Assistant on the Google Home without realising that it's been activated on his Pixel 3 as well. Also, even after the Google Assistant activity was over the Pixel 3 screen remained on.

A similar incident occurred where the Assistant was active on Google Home but it instead turned on the Pixel Slate. Here, the screen was stuck with Google Assistant's launch screen. This could lead to some serious repercussions as the phone could heat up and eventually burst.

The report also found multiple users posting similar problems on forums and on Reddit from as early as February 2019. Most of the users found the Google Assistant bug in Pixel devices. However, there was one OnePlus 6T user who found the phone's battery drained to 1% and with Assistant's launch screen.

Google Assistant in its support page states that if you have a Google Home and a phone, only the Google Home should respond to 'Ok Google'. There could be cases where both the devices wake up to Google Assistant but the Google Home will continue to respond while the phone goes to sleep. These incidents did not occur twice for most users but it is quite alarming that there are multiple cases around it.