Jordan O'BrienThe Google Home may have been first to offer multi-room streaming and the ability to recognise different voices, but the search engine giant is now playing catch up to a major Amazon Echo feature – the ability to control Bluetooth speakers. Fortunately, the Google Home goes a step further with its functionality, as it will allow multi-room audio support over Bluetooth.
Google would rather speaker manufacturers simply adopt the Chromecast standard, which is both more reliable than Bluetooth, and easier, but some companies remain resistant. Instead of waiting for more to jump on-board, Google has decided to add support for controlling Bluetooth speakers from a Google Home smart speaker.
To get set-up, users just need to connect their Google Home, Google Home Mini, Google Home Max, or other Google Assistant-enabled speaker with any Bluetooth speaker. They will then have the opportunity to make it the default audio projector; doing this will enable the ability to simply say ‘OK Google, play music’, without the need to say the device’s name each time.
Once the Bluetooth speaker is set-up, it will then appear within the Google Home app, which is where users are free to add it to groups. That brings the Bluetooth speaker into the multi-room environment, meaning music can be synced across an entire home if the user desires.
That’s not the only advantage of the Bluetooth connection with Google Home. The other benefit comes from the ability to play a whole myriad of music streaming services. That means those who have a ‘dumb’ Bluetooth speaker will now find themselves able to play tracks from Spotify, Google Play Music, Deezer, or just about any music streaming service.