How to use Chromecast and Nest speakers for playing music in every room of your house

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Google Nest/Home speakers are pretty impressive all around on their own, and get used most for playing music by most of the users. If you add Chromecasts to this mix, this combo gets amazing together.

If you’ve several Cast-enabled speakers (includes Google Nest/Home speakers) and Chromecasts throughout your home, you’ve likely grouped them all together into a speaker group or in a Home audio group using Google Home app for iOS or Android smartphones. That way, you can cast music, podcasts, or audiobooks from one audio source and have the music play in sync throughout your whole house.

You can group any combination of Google Nest/Home speakers and displays and Chromecast devices together for synchronous music throughout the home. That means you can play your music and audio or queue up a song or playlist on Spotify, YouTube Music, iHeartRadio, Pandora Premium or other streaming music services or Chromecast-enabled apps both through your television and Nest/Home speakers anywhere in your house.

When a TV with Chromecast is synced to a speaker group, the connected TV display shows song information on the “Backdrop” screen, atop a rotating selection of background images.

Compatible devices include Google Home, Google Nest/Home Mini, Google Home Max, Google Nest Audio, and Google Nest displays, Google Nest Wifi point, Chromecast with Google TV, Chromecast, Chromecast Ultra, Chromecast Audio, and devices with Chromecast built-in.

Note: This feature is not supported on Chromecast (1st gen).

How to correct group playback delay: If there’s a delay between one device in the group and the others, use the group delay correction setting in Google Home app for that device to resolve the issue.

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Control Chromecast-enabled TVs and speakers using the Google Assistant

Lower the volume of videos and music when using Google Assistant

Google Nest/Home speakers are smart enough to lower the volume of any music or video playing on speakers or TVs that it’s casting to when a user is speaking to the Assistant.

The idea is simple – to make it easier for Google Assistant to hear you when you speak to it and for you to more easily hear Assistant when it replies, the volume is lowered. However, it won’t work when the following conditions are true:

• If you’re casting music on a group of Cast devices.
• If you started casting content on a TV or speaker using a mobile phone and not your voice.
• When casting content on an Android TV devices with fixed volume (e.g. Nexus Player)
• When casting content on a Chromecast built-in speaker or TV, or Android TV running Chromecast firmware version older than 1.25. – – For TV shows and movies when playback is done at 5.1 surround sound.

If you would like to turn this functionality off for some reason, you can do so by following these steps:

1. Open the Google Home app .
2. Touch and hold your device’s tile.
3. At the top right, tap Settings   Audio  turn off Lower volume when listening .

Turn your Chromecast-connected TV on and off with Google Assistant

Google Assistant has been able to cast and stop casting content to TVs since launch, even being able to turn them on via HDMI CEC, but as pretty as the backdrops are, you’ll eventually want to turn your TV fully off. Did you know, you can turn your TV on and off using your voice and Google Nest/Home speakers?

This will depend on your setup, but if you stick along the general line of “Turn off my TV” or “Power off the TV” and slight variations of that, you’re good to go. Do keep in mind, though, that if you have multiple Chromecast devices on your network, you’ll be required to say the specific device’s name.

Turn TV on and off using voice commands

Turn on TV	“Turn on, the or my TV,” “Turn on, the or my <device name>” “Power on, the or my TV,” “Power on, the or my <device name>”
Turn off TV	“Turn off, the or my TV,” “Turn off, the or my <device name>” “Power off, the or my TV,” “Power off, the or my <device name>”

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One of our community member Ganie B put up a wall screen made up of some Ikea shelving and recycled laptop 15.4″ screen. Powered by smart plug and driven by Chromecast. Triggered by Google Home.

Another community member, Hoveeman built an awesome jukebox-style system for his Google Home and Chromecast speakers. He wired a RFID reader to a Raspberry Pi Zero(with MicroSD and power supply) and hid them under a table. The cards are RFID-enabled and printed with the album covers and names. When he swipes one of his album art-adorned RFID tags, Raspberry Pi Zero reads these cards and triggers Home assistant (run on another server or on a Raspberry Pi 3), which makes a group of Google Home and Chromecast speakers to play back a specific artist-themed playlist.

For tinkerers, If you’re interested in exploring or copying his setup, he has put everything up on GitHub, including a list of the gear he’s using.

Full marks for tinkering and this dope tech. What areas of your home, have you automated using Google Nest speakers and Chromecast and how, let us know in the comments below.