Tip: Create a Google Home Stereo Pair

Google now lets you create stereo pairs with its Google Home and Google Home Mini smart speakers. It’s a great if long overdue addition to the platform. And it’s really easy to set up.

I wrote about how this change positively impacted our use of these smart speakers in our home earlier today in Paul’s Tech Makeover: Google Ekes Out an Audio Win (Premium). Here’s how you set it up.

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First, of course, you need two Google Home or Google Home Mini smart speakers, and they need to be connected to the Google Home app on your smartphone or tablet. I recommend (re)naming them logically just to help with the setup; for example, I renamed one Google Home Mini to Living Room Home Mini Left and the other two Living Room Home Mini Right. It’s also a good idea to make sure they’re both configured to be in the same room in the Google Home app (just as they should literally be in the same room in real life).

With that out of the way, select one of the Google Homes you wish to pair in the Google Home app. Then, select the Settings gear icon in the upper right to access its Device settings page.

Scroll down until you find “Speaker pair: Set up speaker pair.” Select that, and you’ll be presented with a short wizard in which you choose the other speaker for the pair—Google will preselect the correct speaker if possible—and then choose which speaker is on the left.

After a few other pages, you can select a new name for the pair—I chose Living Room Home Mini Pair for my Home Minis—and you’re done. Now, when you bring up a Chromecast/Googlecast menu, you’ll see your new pair in the list.

I also added this and the other Google Home Pair to my “Thurrott All” group in Google Home to enable whole-house audio. That’s pretty cool, and if you’re the voice command type, you can, of course, speak to the speaker pair as well; the left speaker is the one that will accept your commands.

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Conversation 10 comments

  • Lateef Alabi-Oki

    10 November, 2019 - 1:25 pm

    <p>I can envision Google allowing these speakers to pair to Chromecast or Android TV to create a 2.1 or 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound group. You'll just have to buy a bunch of minis and maybe a max to emulate surround sound.</p>

    • Paul Thurrott

      Premium Member
      10 November, 2019 - 4:22 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#487820">In reply to mystilleef:</a></em></blockquote><p>So, with a smart display you can configure another device — like that speaker pair — to have a different "default music speaker." It doesn't work, but it would be kind of cool if I played a YouTube TV on it and the sound came out of the speakers. (It doesn't work with straight up music either.) You don't even bet that option with Chromecast, but it would likewise be neat if you could configure the sound to come from other speakers. I wonder if this will ever happen. </p>

  • ronh

    Premium Member
    10 November, 2019 - 6:26 pm

    <p>Nice, I have some reconfiguring to do</p>

  • brettscoast

    Premium Member
    11 November, 2019 - 12:54 am

    <p>Great stuff Paul thanks for the heads up. Setup looks fairly straight forward.</p>

  • btrproducer

    Premium Member
    11 November, 2019 - 2:23 am

    <p>So what do you see as the use case here, Paul, aside from the obvious. For example, the stereo pair near your TV. Are you going to output your TV audio through this, thus avoiding the need for something like a sound bar? Or is this just for music and podcasts? </p>

    • Paul Thurrott

      Premium Member
      11 November, 2019 - 8:33 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#487894">In reply to BTRProducer:</a></em></blockquote><p>Right now it's just music and podcasts. I don't see a way to output sound from a Chromecast Ultra to the speakers.</p>

    • bassoprofundo

      Premium Member
      11 November, 2019 - 6:44 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#487894">In reply to BTRProducer:</a></em></blockquote><p>I was thinking the same thing. Since you can't really use these as external speakers for other devices (ex.- better speakers for your TV), it really limits the utility. You end out with two voice-activated speakers in proximity to one another, which seems like a waste of that capability. A set of decent bookshelf speakers hooked to a Chromecast audio really gets you more bang for the buck if audio quality is your primary concern. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I guess I would file this firmly under the "nice to have" category.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I have extra Minis lying around, so maybe I should try this before I mouth off about it. :)</span></p>

  • phytio

    Premium Member
    11 November, 2019 - 10:09 am

    <p>Can you add Smart Displays to speaker pairings? </p>

  • Pbike908

    11 November, 2019 - 1:30 pm

    <p>Geez, Paul. Google has a "listening" device in nearly every room of your house:) </p><p><br></p><p>That's OK with me, so long as it's OK with you and Mrs. T….Just sayin…</p>

  • Jeffsters

    15 November, 2019 - 10:26 am

    <p>I would recommend you not use the Room names in your Device names. It can lead to unexpected results.</p>

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