Google share price: Google Home products cause WiFi outages

Google shares are set to open in the US shortly, after the Martin Luther King Holiday on Monday. However, after a strong performance Friday last week, Google shares will open to news that Google Home can cause Wifi outages.

Google shares closed higher at $1,130.65 in the US on Friday ahead of the three-day weekend.

Google Home affecting some Wifi performance

Google’s Home and Chromecast devices are causing Wifi outages due to the amount of data they send out when they awaken from sleep mode. The high amount of data ‘packets’ can cause routers to either drop their internet connection or their connection to the devices.

According to a number of news outlets, Google has admitted the flaw and “is working quickly to share a solution”.

In the meantime, some router manufacturers have shared their own, temporary fixes while Google works to come up with a long-term solution to the problem.

Linksys and Netgear have both created and made available patches to their router users, to enable them to successful use Google Home and Chromecast.

“Today I am happy to announce firmware to help resolve the issues that people have been running into with their WRT routers with networks that have Android devices on them,” Linksys said late last week.

“I will keep the overall description short here, but this firmware incorporates a new WLAN driver that will help mitigate an issue that was discovered where Android devices coming in and out of sleep mode would crash the Wireless Network.”

Google Maps returns to China

On a different Google topic, Google Maps has returned to China after eight years of being an unreliable service for users there.

While Google states there has been no change of policy, users in China are now more able to access Google Maps from their smartphones. It’s possible that Chinese authorities may have softened its attitude towards Google’s availability to its China-based users.