How to Connect Google Home to Bluetooth Speakers

Amplify your Google Home by pairing it with external speakers

By
Tim Fisher
Photo of Tim Fisher, Lifewire GM and Writer
Tim Fisher
Senior Vice President & Group General Manager, Tech & Sustainability
  • Emporia State University
Tim Fisher has more than 30 years' of professional technology experience. He's been writing about tech for more than two decades and serves as the SVP and General Manager of Lifewire.
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Updated on September 20, 2023

What to Know

  • Turn on both speakers. Then, in the Google Home app, go to Devices and select your Google speaker.
  • Next, choose Settings > Audio > Default music speaker.
  • Put speakers into pairing mode. Select Pair Bluetooth speaker and choose the speaker.

This article explains how to connect Google Home to Bluetooth speakers using the Google Home app. Also included are troubleshooting tips to help with any problems that might occur during the initial pairing.

Google Home Bluetooth Setup Directions

Here's how to hook up Google Home to your Bluetooth speakers:

  1. With both devices turned on, open the Google Home app. It's available for Android, iPhone, and iPad.

  2. From the Favorites tab, ensure that you've selected the correct home. If you need to change it, press that menu and select the other home.

  3. Tap the Devices tab at the bottom of the app, and then choose the Google Home device that you want to connect to the Bluetooth speaker. It's probably called Speaker.

  4. Select Settings (the gear icon) from the top right.

  5. Go to Audio > Default music speaker.

    Google Home Android app home screen and device settings

  6. Put your Bluetooth speaker into pairing mode. It might have a button that you have to press once or press-and-hold for a few seconds. Others might be connected to an app where you can enable pairing mode. Consult the documentation for your speaker for specifics.

  7. Return to the Google Home app and select Pair Bluetooth speaker, and then select the speaker when you see it appear on the screen.

    Google Home pair bluetooth speaker button

When you connect Google Home to Bluetooth speakers, all music that you command through Google Home plays on the Bluetooth device. However, other things, like Google Assistant responses, alarms, and timers, continue to play through the Google Home's built-in speaker.

Troubleshooting Tips

If Google Home app can't find your speaker, verify that the speaker is in pairing mode and, if there's a physical switch to enable Bluetooth, that the switch is in the on position.

Tap Rescan in the app if you see a message that says no devices were found. It might take a few tries.

If Google Home is having trouble hearing you after you've paired the speaker, make sure you're talking to the Google Home speaker itself and not the newly paired speaker. The microphone is on Google Home.

You can connect multiple Bluetooth speakers to Google Home simultaneously. Either add multiple speakers through the app so you can pick which one to play music on, or create a speaker group to play the same music across multiple speakers at once.

There's no reason to reconnect the Bluetooth speaker each time you want to use it. The directions above let you pair and connect the speaker to Google Home just once, so every time after that, music will continue to play through the Bluetooth speaker until you turn it off or it gets disconnected.

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