When the first smart speakers launched in Australia, I was so filled with excitement. I lusted for the idea of a home I could talk, which could turn even my three bedder into Tony Stark’s Malibu mansion.

I was fortunate enough to be able to test just about everything that launched in that first year. From Google Home to Amazon’s Echo family, plus a bunch of products from brands that should have done better than they did, like Sony and Panasonic.

It was quickly apparent that my dreams of becoming a low-key Iron Man were not even close to becoming reality. The devices were only partly reliable. They misunderstood my Aussie twang way too frequently. And they had an alarming habit of reacting to us filling the kettle as though we’d tried to speak the code word.

Today, our Google Home is used almost exclusively to set cooking timers. But even this is painful.

Approximately every tenth timer, Google decides to remind us that we can also use it to set an alarm.

“Side note”, it says, unprompted and unwanted. “If you want to set an alarm on this device, just…”

It is at this point every single member of the family starts screaming at it.

“Shut up!” I cry.

“Stop!” Yell the children, hoping it will hear.

But it ignores us, and finishes its spiel.

Surely, there has to be at least one person at Google who understands that this is just infuriating behaviour. There is no way to tell it that I will never, ever need an alarm on the kitchen speaker. There is no way to tell it to please (for the love of God) stop recommending the same service on the same device over and over again.

If we heard it once, and didn’t use it, then that service is obviously not useful for us.

This seems pretty straightforward to me. But apparently it’s too much for Google.