Google Nest speakers are more than capable of acting as your music player

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Google Nest/Home speakers are a great set of speakers, making them fully capable of filling the room/ homes of all users with music. All you have to do is ask Google Assistant to play what you want to hear and you’ll be able to listen to the music you’re craving.

Table of contents

• Listen to YouTube Music for free on your Nest speakers
• Listen to Spotify for free on your Nest speakers
• Listen to Pandora for free on your Nest speakers
• Listen to Deezer for free on your Nest speakers
• House music: Multi-room audio control from Nest
• How to ask Google Assistant to move music between devices(and rooms)?
• Transfer media between speakers and displays in your home

To set a default music provider, in Google Home app navigate to Settings > Services > Music > select any of these as your default music service, so when you ask to play a song with a voice command, the Google Assistant will play a song from your preferred and linked service. It’s never been easier to enjoy the perfect music for any moment. Forget needing to find your phone, or combing through your CD collection—when you combine all of above streaming options, you can enjoy the perfect song or playlist with a simple voice command.

Listen to YouTube Music for free on your Nest speakers

Listen to the ad-supported free tier of streaming service on your Google Nest/Home speakers and other Google Assistant-powered speakers like those from JBL, Panasonic, Sony, Polk and others.

Need a groove to get you ready for a night out? Say,

• Hey Google, play Latin vibes

Looking to kick off a dinner party or pick a power playlist for your home workout? You’re covered. Say you’re making a cake and your hands are covered in dough. Just say, “Hey Google, play music for cooking” and get the perfect tunes. Had a long day at work and are too tired to move a muscle, say “Hey Google, play music for relaxing” and get a playlist without lifting a finger. With YouTube Music, you can ask Google Assistant to play the right music for any moment or mood, and it will play the perfect station, customized to your tastes based upon your request.

On top of the subscription or free radio service, you can listen to music you’ve uploaded(up to 100,000 songs to your YouTube Music library) to and purchased on YouTube Music. When playing music as a free user, your uploaded and purchased songs are more likely to come up than those that you haven’t purchased in the same mix. You can play uploaded songs in the background, ad-free and offline – even if you are not currently a YouTube Music Premium subscriber. Conversely, uploaded or purchased music is more likely to play if you are a paid subscriber. There are still a few exceptions to that, however. For example, asking Google to play music for a specific mood, genre, or activity will ignore that entirely and will default to the way it used to be.

When asking for songs, albums, and artists from your library:

• Free radio service (U.S. and Canada) – Uploaded/purchased content will play before the free radio station.
• Subscription – Subscription on demand content will play before your purchased/uploaded content unless you ask to play it from your library using “Play X .”, “Play my X”, etc.

With YouTube Music Premium, request specific albums, songs, artists, and playlists on-demand. It also offers useful player controls, such as unlimited skips and song replay on smart speakers. Has additional perks on YouTube Music app, like background play, ads-free music(across every device), and audio-only mode.

Listen to Spotify for free on your Nest speakers

You’ll be able to ask for music to be played based on genre, mood, or activity, or for Spotify-curated playlists on a free account. You’ll also be able to take advantage of casting your songs from Google Home to other speakers or TVs in your home. Millions of Spotify’s free users will be able to enjoy Spotify in their homes through voice-activated speakers.

Ask Google Assistant to play music! Here are a few sample voice commands to get you started:

• Hey Google, play Spotify
• Hey Google, play Discover Weekly
• Hey Google, play Rap Caviar
• Hey Google, play my “chill” playlist

It’s easier to jam out to your latest favorite song when you know the words. That’s why, Spotify also brings live lyrics on Google Nest Hub and other Google Assistant Smart Displays and helps users to sing louder and more confidently. An experience that’s simple and interactive— by bringing song lyrics to life across the majority of tracks.

When playing a song on the Nest Hub, Spotify’s full screen media controls feature a lyrics button next to the bottom-right corner heart. Tapping swaps the background image for scrolling text that highlights the current line as the track progresses. Upcoming lines appear underneath the transparent row of controls.

The lyrics feature also notes – 🎵 – when there are no words, and it will remain enabled as you switch tunes until you turn it off.

Availability: Lyrics are available to all Free and Premium users across Nest Hub/Max and Android devices.

Listen to Pandora for free on your Nest speakers

Ask your Google Assistant on Smart Displays, Nest Audio, Mini, Google Home, and Max to play your favorite songs with Pandora Premium.

Like any other music service, Pandora will function on a basic level with a free account. Then all you have to do is say, “Hey Google, play my Chill playlist on Pandora.”

Pandora Premium subscribers can search and play their favorite songs, albums and playlists. The ability to search by lyrics is another benefit to using Pandora Premium on Google Assistant devices – and an area where Spotify is glaringly absent.

Listen to Deezer for free on your Nest speakers

Deezer free and with a Premium+ subscription listeners can access Deezer’s collection of more than 53 million songs on Google Home. Also, the Google Assistant will recognize 18 different moods and 74 genres should you wish to find new tunes, or sort through your music based on certain categorizations. Kick off your music session with “Hey Google, play my music” and enjoy your tracks.

All Google Assistant speakers will now be able to stream lossless audio on Deezer. Deezer offers a high-fidelity lossless streaming plan called Deezer HiFi. Those subscribed to its HiFi tier will be able to get FLAC quality sound at 16bit/44.1kHz resolution of CD-quality.

Deezer Free comes with ads, but you do get six skips an hour. All playlists will also be in shuffle mode and you’ll hear artist mixes.

Availability: Deezer Free on Google Assistant smart speakers and displays available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain, the UK and the US.

Since Google Nest/Home speakers Home are powered by the Google Assistant, you can ask questions like “Hey Google, who is the singer of this song?” and tell it to do things like “Hey Google, turn it up!”

Stay updated on Google News with the latest updates from Google Home/Assistant ecosystem.

House music: Multi-room audio control from Nest

Controlling the audio of Nest speakers, throughout your home, no matter who’s listening, has been incredibly helpful.

You can already manually group Nest devices in order to play the same music on various speakers at the same time, and expanding that control, with multi-room control you can also dynamically group multiple cast-enabled Nest devices (speakers, Smart Displays, Chromecasts) in real-time to fill multiple rooms with music. This is called a Speaker group. In the Google Home app, you can have many different devices placed in different rooms. Each device has a button that lets interact with it. This goes for individual Google Home compatible speakers as well. Similarly, this also applies to speaker groups, found at the bottom of the app.

A speaker group is a set of speakers you define that lets the Google Home app know that you want those speakers to play audio in unison. When you create a group, it doesn’t change the ability the speaker has to play music by itself; rather, it just adds a separate button at the bottom of your main Google Home page for that particular group.

Multi-room control works with your favorite audio apps, including YouTube Music, Spotify, Pandora and more. If you have more than one Google Assistant-enabled smart speaker or Smart Display, tap the icon in the bottom left corner of the screen when any audio content is playing, and you’ll easily be able to add or remove your other devices throughout your home.

Do I need to use Google’s Nest speakers?
No, speaker groups are not limited to Google-made devices. As long as the speaker works with Google Assistant and is seen in Google Home app, you can likely place it in a speaker group.

This helps Nest devices come together as a whole-home audio system. Here are a few other ways to take advantage of it:

• Move music from one room to another: Stream transfer lets you easily move music, videos, podcasts and more between compatible devices in your home using your voice, the Google Home app or the touchscreen on your Nest smart display.
• Experience stereo sound: Stereo pair two Nest Audio/Mini or Google Home Max devices in the Google Home app for room-filling sound and even more immersive left and right channel separation.

Create a home audio system that fills your home with sound. Listen to music in stereo sound, or hear it all around the house. Nest Audio works together with your other Nest speakers and displays, Chromecast-enabled devices, or compatible speakers. And it’s easy to set up.

With so much more choice when it comes to music streaming services(YouTube Music, Spotify Free and Premium, Pandora, TuneIn, Deezer, SoundCloud and iHeartRadio) on Google Nest/Home speakers, next time when you’re throwing a party or hanging out with friends, Google Nest/Home speakers have got the DJ booth covered.

How to play music on all your Google Nest speakers at once?

Set up a speaker group in the Google Home App with a name like ‘Everywhere’ or ‘All’ and then ask Google Assistant to play music on this group, to fill your whole home with music.

How to ask Google Assistant to move music between devices(and rooms)?

Google Assistant and Nest speakers have made it easier for people to play music and stream music effortlessly. And with Nest Hub/Max, users have a smart display for streaming their favorite shows and videos at home.

Now that millions of users have multiple TVs, smart speakers and smart displays, Google has made it easier to take your media(music and videos) with you as you move from room to room in your home. With Stream transfer, you can easily move music, videos, podcasts and more between compatible devices in your home using your voice, Google Home app or by touch on your Nest Hub/Max. Here’s how you can give it a try: 

• Move your music with the Google Assistant: Started playing music on Nest Mini in your bedroom, and want music to follow you to keep the vibe going in the living room. Just say, “Hey Google, move the music to the living room speaker.”
• Control your entertainment with the Google Home app: Sling music from device to device if you’d rather not say anything out loud. Tap the cast button to see all the devices in your home, then choose which device or group you’d like to move your podcast or music to. 
• Move YouTube videos between your Nest smart display and Chromecast-enabled TV: Browse for your favorite YouTube videos on Nest Hub Max, and tap the cast control on the screen to move it to your Chromecast-connected TV. Or, say “Hey Google, play it on living room TV.”
• Fill your home with music: If you have more than one Google Nest smart speaker or display, you can set up a speaker group in the Home App. Transfer music from a single speaker to the speaker group to fill your whole home with music.

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Transfer media between speakers and displays in your home

Stream transfer is compatible with your favorite audio apps. Move music(YouTube Music, Spotify, Pandora, and more), podcasts, radio, and YouTube videos currently streaming from your Google Nest, Google Home, or Chromecast device to another Nest speaker, speaker group, display or Chromecast-connected device by asking Assistant or using the Google Home app.

Devices you can transfer media to

• Google Home, Google Nest Mini (2nd gen), Google Home Mini (1st gen), Google Home Max, Google Nest Audio
• Google Nest Hub or Google Nest Hub Max
• Chromecast with Google TV, Chromecast (2nd or 3rd gen), Chromecast Ultra, or Chromecast Audio
• Speaker groups

Supported media:

• Any audio (except news and media playing via Bluetooth)
• YouTube for videos

Have you been using Google Nest/Home speakers to play music? Which music streaming service(s) you use, let us know in the comments below.