How to Pair Google Home to a Bluetooth Speaker

How To
By published

The Google Home could sound better. Fortunately, you can pair it with a Bluetooth speaker to get better audio.

The Google Home Mini is a cost-effective way to get Google Assistant into your house or apartment, where you can use it for all sorts of things, from controlling smart-home devices to looking up the weather, recipes, movie times and more. The one thing the Mini is not known for, though, is audio quality. Fortunately, you can pair the Mini (as well as any other Google Home speaker) to a Bluetooth speaker, letting you crank out your tunes in high fidelity. Here's how to do it.

1. Place Your Bluetooth speaker in pairing mode. This will depend on the speaker you have. but in most cases involves pressing and holding a button indicated with the Bluetooth logo, as on this UE Megaboom.

2. Open the Google Home app on your smartphone or tablet, and Select Devices by pressing the icon in the upper right corner.

3. Select the Google Home device with which you'd like to pair the Bluetooth speaker.

4. Press the three little dots to the upper right of the Google Home card. You should see three items: Settings, Guest Mode and Reboot. Select Settings.

5. Scroll down the page, and under Sound Settings, select Default Speaker (Choose a speaker)

6. Press "Pair Bluetooth speaker."

7. Your Google Home will then search for Bluetooth speakers. The ones it finds will appear in a list.

8. Choose the speaker you want to pair with your Google Home.

9. You should be all set. Start jammin'!

What You Can Say

You will still have to speak your commands to the Google Home device in order for it to play music, etc. — and Google Assistant will respond to you from the Google Home Device — but music should now come out of the paired Bluetooth speaker.

You can also group the Bluetooth speaker with others, so that you can set up  audio for multiple rooms, without needing a Google Home device in every room.

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Mike Prospero
Mike Prospero
U.S. Editor-in-Chief, Tom's Guide

Michael A. Prospero is the U.S. Editor-in-Chief for Tom’s Guide. He oversees all evergreen content and oversees the Homes, Smart Home, and Fitness/Wearables categories for the site. In his spare time, he also tests out the latest drones, electric scooters, and smart home gadgets, such as video doorbells. Before his tenure at Tom's Guide, he was the Reviews Editor for Laptop Magazine, a reporter at Fast Company, the Times of Trenton, and, many eons back, an intern at George magazine. He received his undergraduate degree from Boston College, where he worked on the campus newspaper The Heights, and then attended the Columbia University school of Journalism. When he’s not testing out the latest running watch, electric scooter, or skiing or training for a marathon, he’s probably using the latest sous vide machine, smoker, or pizza oven, to the delight — or chagrin — of his family.