Google Home FAQ

BailMeOut

wolfyboy555 wrote: »

How is this for playing Irish radio stations?

If they are in TuneIn then no issues. Definitely works with newstalk and RTE.

thecivvie

wolfyboy555 wrote: »

How is this for playing Irish radio stations?

Uses TuneIn so plays them perfectly. Tried local and national with no issues. No subscription to TuneIn required

OldBean

Very happy with the broadcast function, it only came in this afternoon for us and it's been so handy for communication without having to shout up the stairs or send a text. I hope they work a bit more on it so we can send the broadcasts to specific devices. Would also love a tap to broadcast feature for the top of the units.

BionicRasher

bk wrote: »

Can I play music on it from my phone using Bluetooth?

No, Google Home doesn't support Bluetooth. However if your apps support Chromecast Audio, then you can use that to cast audio to your Google Home.

Can I plug it into my Hifi, AV receiver or other high end speakers?

No, Google Home has no audio out port. However you can indirectly play music from Google Home out of better speakers by using Chromecast Audios attached to speakers. However there is currently a bug with Chromecast Audio working in Ireland, see below for more details and a work around.

Can I connect Google Home to other Bluetooth speakers for better audio quality?

First of all, Google Homes audio quality is pretty good, probably as good as most Bluetooth speakers. But in case you have really high end ones, then the direct answer is NO as Google Home doesn't support Bluetooth. However if your Bluetooth speakers also have an audio line in, then you could indirectly use Chromecast Audio to cast (stream) the audio from Google Home to the bluetooth speaker via Chromecast Audio.

Interested in getting a Google Home as Alexa is driving me a little crazy at the moment as she is a bit dumb!

One question is about Bluetooth connections and the info above may now be inaccurate
From a bit of digging on the web I see that Bluetooth connection can be made from phones etc to enable streaming music to the Google Home
Can the reverse be done i.e. Can I stream the Google Home to a Bluetooth speaker and therefore have a portable Google Home?

I have an Amazon Tap and its great to be able to move around the house with the speaker in tow!

newbuild06

I am thinking of getting one of these but i am just wondering what podcast apps the goolge home supports. I use podacast addict and can't seem to find any info if it is supported by google home or not.
Does anyone know? thanks

matrim

newbuild06 wrote: »

I am thinking of getting one of these but i am just wondering what podcast apps the goolge home supports. I use podacast addict and can't seem to find any info if it is supported by google home or not.
Does anyone know? thanks

I think it only supports podcasts through google play. I use podcast addict too and just cast the audio to the google home when I wanted to listen at home.

bk

BionicRasher wrote: »

Can the reverse be done i.e. Can I stream the Google Home to a Bluetooth speaker and therefore have a portable Google Home?

No, it doesn't have bluetooth out at the moment. You could use a Chromecast audio to get the same effect if your bluetooth speaker has 3.5mm audio in port.

BTW seemingly Google Assistant is supposed to be coming to the UE Blast in future, which would give you the same as what you currently have.

newbuild06 wrote: »

I am thinking of getting one of these but i am just wondering what podcast apps the goolge home supports. I use podacast addict and can't seem to find any info if it is supported by google home or not.
Does anyone know? thanks

Some info on podcasts here, I haven't tried it:
https://support.google.com/googlehome/answer/7072800?hl=en

ongarite

newbuild06 wrote: »

I am thinking of getting one of these but i am just wondering what podcast apps the goolge home supports. I use podacast addict and can't seem to find any info if it is supported by google home or not.
Does anyone know? thanks

PocketCasts may work with Google Home/Assistant
http://support.pocketcasts.com/article/google-now-voice-commands/
Also works like Chromecast, so you can push the podcast to the Google Home

BionicRasher

bk wrote: »

No, it doesn't have bluetooth out at the moment. You could use a Chromecast audio to get the same effect if your bluetooth speaker has 3.5mm audio in port.

Thats a bit pointless as the Chromecast Audio needs to be plugged in to a power source therefore is not portable

bk wrote: »

BTW seemingly Google Assistant is supposed to be coming to the UE Blast in future, which would give you the same as what you currently have.

Looking around the web there are some options - this one looks good but is a big price jump up from whats on offer at the moment
https://uk.jbl.com/bluetooth-portables/JBL+LINK+20.html?dwvar_JBL%20LINK%2020_color=Black-Germany-#prefn1=isAvailabilityforLocale&prefn2=isRefurbished&prefv3=false&srule=product-name-ascending&sz=12&start=1&prefv1=yes&prefv2=false&prefn3=isSupport
Decent speaker and portable but people are saying that its not in 'Always Listening mode' when running on battery so thats a bit of a downer as having to press a button to engage the listening feature is a bit annoying

This looks like a decent option for portability - https://eu.mobvoi.com/pages/tichomemini-landing

the heathen

ongarite wrote: »

PocketCasts may work with Google Home/Assistant
http://support.pocketcasts.com/article/google-now-voice-commands/
Also works like Chromecast, so you can push the podcast to the Google Home

Pocketcasts works perfectly.

BobbyT28

FYI

For anyone thinking of cancelling there order with Curry's UK.

I cancelled my Google Home mini from Curry's UK (order made 15/11) for the Google Home on google site.

Order was still in processing, but they said that they couldn't cancel the order. They said what they could do was, watch the order and when it ships they would change the address to "return to sender" (Curry's UK). When they receive the google mini pack (Saturday most likely she said) they would refund my money back to my PayPal account.

Not ideal but hey what can you do.

Just think the Google Home deal is too good to turn down.

BobbyT28

newbuild06

Thanks folks for all the replies, much appreciated. hard to live without the podcasts these days.
it is a choice between this and the amazon echo but i am leaning towards google at the moment.

Benzino

BobbyT28 wrote: »

FYI

For anyone thinking of cancelling there order with Curry's UK.

I cancelled my Google Home mini from Curry's UK (order made 15/11) for the Google Home on google site.

Order was still in processing, but they said that they couldn't cancel the order. They said what they could do was, watch the order and when it ships they would change the address to "return to sender" (Curry's UK). When they receive the google mini pack (Saturday most likely she said) they would refund my money back to my PayPal account.

Not ideal but hey what can you do.

Just think the Google Home deal is too good to turn down.

BobbyT28

But they are the same price on both sites.

BionicRasher

BobbyT28 wrote: »

FYI

For anyone thinking of cancelling there order with Curry's UK.

I cancelled my Google Home mini from Curry's UK (order made 15/11) for the Google Home on google site.

Order was still in processing, but they said that they couldn't cancel the order. They said what they could do was, watch the order and when it ships they would change the address to "return to sender" (Curry's UK). When they receive the google mini pack (Saturday most likely she said) they would refund my money back to my PayPal account.

Not ideal but hey what can you do.

Just think the Google Home deal is too good to turn down.

BobbyT28

Looks like the offer is going to be available until Nov 29th

BobbyT28

Benzino wrote: »

But they are the same price on both sites.

I know, but feel more confortable ordering through google.

Also out of 3 orders with curry's UK over the last 18months 1 of them was cancelled due to address (PM). All 3 orders were going to PM, so not sure why that one order got cancelled.

Didin't want the same to happen with this offer.

Benzino

BobbyT28 wrote: »

I know, but feel more confortable ordering through google.

Also out of 3 orders with curry's UK over the last 18months 1 of them was cancelled due to address (PM). All 3 orders were going to PM, so not sure why that one order got cancelled.

Didin't want the same to happen with this offer.

Ah fair enough, I picked up your reasoning wrong, my bad

I've ordered with Currys, gonna wait and see if it's cancelled as the Google offer is one for a while, so no real rush

kenmc

Benzino wrote: »

Ah fair enough, I picked up your reasoning wrong, my bad

I've ordered with Currys, gonna wait and see if it's cancelled as the Google offer is one for a while, so no real rush

Ditto
still hasn't feckin shipped yet though
grrrrr i want it yesterday

McG

according to the tracking info from google my order has already been delivered and signed for, just waiting to hear from Parcel Motel now.

BoardsMember

Re Podcasts, I'm not sure what other GHome apps support Podcasts, but when I ask it to play a given Podcast it will. i.e. I might ask it "ok google play second captains podcast" and it will play the most recent one, it confirms that it is playing the most recent one and calls back the episode number. It may be Spotify that it is using to play it, I'm not sure if I tell it to play through spotify, can't remember.

kenmc

kenmc wrote: »

Ditto
still hasn't feckin shipped yet though
grrrrr i want it yesterday

Rang to see what the story was, apparently they're waiting on royal mail to come an collect it and issue a tracking number, so at the moment there doesn't seem to be any reason to believe it won't arrive.

BobbyT28

Benzino wrote: »

Ah fair enough, I picked up your reasoning wrong, my bad

I've ordered with Currys, gonna wait and see if it's cancelled as the Google offer is one for a while, so no real rush

Ordered mini yesterday at 11am. Just got confirmation email to say it's on the way! If they don't cancel it Iloilo just keep it or Sell it on

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

jogdish

I say "ok google play this is only a test podcast" works fine for me, done west wing weekly too. both work for me.

Atomic Pineapple

BobbyT28 wrote: »

Ordered mini yesterday at 11am. Just got confirmation email to say it's on the way! If they don't cancel it Iloilo just keep it or Sell it on

My order shipped today day, was a day late so was a little worried as I previously ordered from the Play Store and it shipped straight away, so must just be delay in dispatching as mentioned above.

wexfordman2

Atomic Pineapple wrote: »

My order shipped today day, was a day late so was a little worried as I previously ordered from the Play Store and it shipped straight away, so must just be delay in dispatching as mentioned above.

Lots of orders going through I reckon

tipperaryboy

How well does home work with chromecast Netflix ? Or is it restricted to youtube only at the moment?

ixoy

tipperaryboy wrote: »

How well does home work with chromecast Netflix ? Or is it restricted to youtube only at the moment?

Extremely well. I use it all the time. You can basically say: "Hey Google, play 'Stranger Things'" and it will launch it on a Chromecast. There's a list of key words then that you can use while a show is playing such as "Pause", "Next Episode" or "Rewind 30 seconds". Aside from the lights it's the feature I use most.

adox

Set mine up this evening. It discovered all my hue lights straight away without having to press the button on the Hue hub.

What I can’t seem to get set up is my harmony hub. I’ve read through the whole thread here but don’t have an answer. The harmony isn’t listed when trying to add a supported device?

Edit: got it sorted.

adox

Ok here’s a question regarding Hue. I have two lights in the living room and a light strip in the kitchen. I want to be able to have the two lights in room “living room” to control together and the light strip that’s in the kitchen as “kitchen” so I can say “turn on kitchen” “turn off living room” etc but I’d also like an option to control all three as well in a “downstairs” option but it doesn’t seem to work.
It seems you can’t have the lights in more than one room. This may be a Hue thing rather than Google Home but I had this set up with Alexa(can’t remember exactly how now and may have involved third party apps perhaps) so was wondering had anyone any ideas? Maybe this would be better asked in the Hue thread?

matrim

tipperaryboy wrote: »

How well does home work with chromecast Netflix ? Or is it restricted to youtube only at the moment?

The only restriction is that it only works with the first profile. So you can't share an account and each use your own profile