How to Connect Google Home to Spotify, Pandora and Other Streaming Music Services

While the Google Home's internal speaker may not match the power or quality of dedicated audio equipment like a Sonos, it's still a solid choice for pumping out some tunes. And because it's connected to your network, it can stream audio from YouTube Music, Spotify, Pandora, Google Play Music and TuneIn.

In order to use many of the services, you'll already have to have an account. In some cases, such as Spotify and YouTube Music, only premium accounts can be linked to Google Home. But don't fret: There are still free options from Google Play Music and Pandora, so you'll never be left without a song in your heart.

1. Open the Home app and tap the menu button in the top left.

2. Tap Music in the slideover menu.

3. Tap the service you want to link to. (Because Google Home is already logged into your Google account, it may already be aware of your Google Play Music and/or YouTube Music accounts). For this example, we'll use Pandora, but the instructions for Spotify are very similar.

4. Tap Link Account.

5. Tap "I have a Pandora account" if you already have one, or "I want to sign up for free" if you don't.

6. If you already have an account, enter your credentials and tap Log In.

7. Your account is now linked. You can choose which service you'd like to use as the default for playing music by tapping it so that the radio button next to it is selected.

8. To play music, just say "OK Google, play artist Guster" or "Hey Google, play album 'Keep It Together'" and it will, if possible, play your request using your default service. You can also play music from a different service by specifying the source. For example: "OK Google, play album 'Factory Showroom' on Google Play Music."

Dan Moren is the author of multiple sci-fi books including The Caledonian Gamibt and The Aleph Extraction. He's also a long-time Mac writer, having worked for Macworld and contributed to the Six Colors blog, where he writes about all things Apple. His work has also appeared in Popular Science, Fast Company, and more