I wonder if any of those cover switching devices. You used to be able to say, "Hey Google, move that to the kitchen," and whatever you were listening to would stop and continue in the kitchen. It still understands the command, but then fails with an error. That feature was something that I used every morning as I moved through the house getting ready for the day.
I can't point to a single thing that these devices do better than they did two years ago, but I can list several features that were important to me that are now either broken or missing.
Honestly, my feeling is that using Google Home is asking for trouble and frustration. It already barely works, but it's not hard to imagine some future where the company that built your front door lock is ordered to stop providing service by some court that finds it in violation of a patent.
I don't use speaker groups, but could possibly be related to this issue from Android 12 -- where it seems Google walked back, disabled, or pulled out previously present functionality, possibly related to this litigation: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/201546605?pli=1
It's unclear how often Googhomes receive updates, but at the beginning in 2019 my 9 Mini's worked great! But now for multiple speakers they are laggy and unreliable, sometimes just ending up in a neverending ding loop.
Unfortunate to buy a product such as this and have functionality and experience quality steadily decline thereafter.
Initially I was a huge fan and in love with the product.
Perhaps I should've known better, since Big-G isn't exactly known for long-term support of anything unless it still makes them torrents of money.
Sonos are in a similar boat, buy an older controller and the app will constantly nag you to upgrade, but not allow you to upgrade because the controller is "too old and no longer compatible".
Is this why I can’t change the volume on a Google Home speaker group anymore?