Oliver Mitchell

How to Enjoy Google Music on Nest or Home Speakers

What we love the most about smart home speakers by Google is their integration with other services. One of them is integration with YouTube Music. You can simply say the name of the song and it will… Oops. This integration is not there unless you have a fully-fledged Premium account. Still, there is a way to listen to music services by Google on these systems.

Suddenly, the key to working around is in refusing the smartest features of the speakers. Unlike Apple, Google left a possibility to use Nest and Home speakers as regular Bluetooth devices. That’s what we need to do. The following instruction goes for both iOS and Android.

1. Open your Google Home App
2. Tap the icon of the speaker you want to connect
3. On the next page, tap the gear-shaped Settings icon
4. Scroll down until you see Device Features
5. Under this section, tap Audio, then Paired Bluetooth Devices
6. Choose “Enable Pairing Mode”
7. Exit the app

Well, now your smart Google Home center is demoted to a regular Bluetooth speaker, at least in terms of music. That’s exactly what we need. Now you can just say “Okay Google, pair Bluetooth” and wait for the affirmative response from Google Assistant. Now that the speaker is ready for pairing, you can open Bluetooth settings on any device (phone, tablet, desktop or laptop, or even certain smartwatches) and connect to it.

If you use Chrome, you can simply go to the YouTube Music page and launch the playback in it. Then right-click on empty space anywhere on the page and choose “Cast”. Among the devices where you can cast it, there will be your Google speaker.

It’s a great way to enjoy your free YouTube Music account on a device and listen to it in higher quality through Google Nest/Home. You still need to be authorized on your playback device, but you can use a free account as well for that. Do you use Google Home devices? If so, tell us whether you enjoy them in the comments.