Polk Assist No Longer Playing BBC Radio in the UK

I agree with NickE, when he says "It seems to me this answer is contradictory - they [the BBC] are investigating the issue, but already know it is not their fault - they seem to know it is the fault of Google or Polk. They do not seem to be telling us all they know. Yes, exactly. Other streaming services work, such as Global Player for Classic FM and LBC, but the problem is restricted specifically to the BBC. No-one seems willing to give us a clear answer as to what is going on so we are left frustrated and guessing. My own guess is that the BBC updated their software in order to take advantage of a new feature which became available on the latest Chromecast version. Other services took a more careful approach perhaps recognising that the rollout of the latest Chromecast would take time and might have issues on some platforms. The worst case scenario for Polk owners is that the hardware is incompatible with the new Chromecast release. Maybe someone reading this forum from BBC / Polk / Google could come clean and explain.

Thanks to Mike G for his research and post. I think it is a little early to call game over on the Polk Assist. I've spent some time searching for more information. It is clear the Android Things developer platform has been closed down and non commercial use is no longer supported. What is not clear is whether legacy support for existing commercial use has been withdrawn. As well as Polk, the operating system is used in certain devices by JBL, LG, Samsung, Lenovo and others. If these companies signed agreements to use Google software/firmware without also getting a commitment from Google to support the platform for a certain term I would be very surprised. https://www.news18.com/news/tech/google-is-shutting-down-android-things-its-unpopular-operating-system-for-iot-products-3192917.html is relevant on this point. Time for an authoritative statement from a representative of Polk or Google.

Is there someone on here with a bit of experience of UK consumer rights law, who could tell us all if we can claim against Polk, or how we do it? Won't they just say "not our fault" as google and BBC do? My speaker is just under 3 years old, so I guess they'll just say it's out of warranty, but I don't consider that acceptable.

In the meantime I think we should all say what we think of Polk on trustpilot.

I'm truly sorry you folks are in this situation, I'd be madder than hell about it.

IMO, there's a lot to be said for the reliability of old technology as the newer Internet and wireless stuff has far too many issues and changes way too fast.

Don't know if this has been mentioned before but I've found a Google workaround on Android, you can start the BBC radio station through the BBC sounds app on your phone, then go into the Google Home app to the speaker and cast my audio to that speaker. I've also found that if you create a speaker group with Polk and a Google speaker and give the instruction to a Google device you can get BBC radio stations to play on Polk Speakers. Not perfect but it saves replacing otherwise decent speakers - at least until there's a sale on Sonos!