Google has acknowledged a Nest Doorbell bug that makes Gemini announce visitors in an American accent. This happens regardless of the language or dialect a household has configured. A Google representative replying in the original Reddit thread, as reported by Android Authority, confirmed the company is aware of it and working on a fix. As of the September 22 reports, no fix had rolled out.
What Google said
Our team is aware of the issue and is actively working on a fix. We’ll circle back here when the fix has rolled out. Thanks for your patience.
That reply gave no timeline and no explanation of the cause. It is an acknowledgement, not a shipped fix, so do not expect your speakers to change behaviour today.
Who is affected
Reports so far come from users in France, the Netherlands and the UK. The pattern is consistent across them. Google Home devices continue to speak the configured language with the expected accent for everything else. Then they switch to US-accented English specifically for Nest Doorbell notifications.
One detail suggests the problem is broader than doorbells. A user in the Netherlands reported a Bosch smart washing machine also defaulting to US English in its Google Home alerts. If a connected appliance from a different manufacturer shows the same behaviour, the fault likely sits in how Google Home handles device-generated announcements. It may not be specific to the doorbell itself.
Cause and workaround
There is no confirmed root cause. 9to5Google, which reported the bug first, noted it may have appeared after a September Google Home update. The visible changelog for that release only mentions an unrelated Gemini follow-up question improvement, so that link remains speculation.
A workaround has been circulating among affected users. The steps are to temporarily add English (US) as a secondary language in Google Home, wait a few seconds, then remove it again. It has not been endorsed by Google and there is no evidence it holds permanently. If you try it, treat it as a temporary nudge rather than a fix.
Why a wrong accent actually matters
It is easy to file this under mildly funny. It is also a language-detection failure in a product family Google sells on the promise that it understands your home. A household that configured French should not be getting American English from the one device that tells them somebody is at the door. Smart home hardware is bought on reliability, and small consistency failures like this are exactly what erode trust in it.
Sources: 9to5Google, Android Authority
