I use Google Home to mirror my Galaxy XR headset to a Google TV. It works great, but there's this annoying red arrow at the top of the screen that remains there the whole time. I assume it's to notify you the headset is being mirrored / possibly recorded. I don't know if this is coming from Google Home or from the headset.

If anyone knows if there's a way to remove that symbol, I'd very much appreciate it!

Back in 2019 I got a free Google Nest Mini through their collaboration with Spotify. It has been a good servant over the years, but more recently it’s become really glitchy when playing music through Spotify. It misunderstands the most basic song requests I say to it, it always plays a remix or acoustic version instead of the original song, and in the Spotify app I have to physically press a song hard and often twice for it to play, otherwise it restarts the song that is already playing. I know I can’t complain too much about a free product 7 years later but has anyone else experienced this?

This is absolutely garbage. I'll be switching off Home Premium ASAP.

I already pay $100/yr for Premium, but they want $200/yr just for me to be able to search my own recordings.

Hey r/googlehome,

Many of us still have (or had) LG WK7 ThinQ speakers that got bricked after Google/LG dropped support. They just sit there as expensive paperweights.

A Google Engineering Manager named Tom Kubik (u/KubikHorizon) (x @KubikHorizon) spent his spare time reverse-engineering and building a new software stack for these speakers. He tried to post a proper thread here but Reddit auto-deleted it, so he could only leave comments on some older WK7 threads.

This is not my work — I’m just creating this post so the community can actually find and discuss it. All credit goes to him.

What it does

• Completely bypasses the dead Google/LG cloud services
  
• Restores local streaming: AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, moOde audio, etc.
  
• Runs a lightweight Alpine Linux stack on firmware slot B
  
• Stock firmware stays intact on slot A as a recovery fallback
  
• Non-destructive install
  

Repo (public domain, “by hobbyists, for hobbyists”):
https://github.com/tomkubik/WK7-reforged

Important note from the repo: the full featured path (unlocked bootloader / “orange” verifiedbootstate) has been tested on real hardware. The locked-bootloader path for normal retail units (“green”) is marked experimental and has never been tested.

A quick note on the hardware side: according to the GitHub, an exposed Micro-USB port is supposed to be only on Developer / Service units, while standard retail units should have the service port hidden under the bottom rubber foot. My unit is a normal retail speaker (European version) and has a clearly visible USB port on the back once you peel the “Service Only” sticker. I never removed the bottom rubber, so I don’t know if there’s a second internal port. I tried connecting via that rear service port (direct to a motherboard USB port, power-cycling while plugged in, etc.) on both Windows and Linux, but the speaker was never detected. I’m not an engineer, so I may have missed something simple.

If anyone with a retail unit (especially European ones) has managed to get ADB detection working, or if the hardware layout differs by region, it would be really useful information for others.

If you still have a WK7 collecting dust and know your way around ADB / Android Things / USB debugging, this is currently the most complete revival effort available. Huge thanks to Tom for putting this together in his free time.

Feel free to leave feedback, questions, success/failure reports, or detection tips here so others can benefit.