Chromecast Gets Support For Google Home Speaker Groups

MW
Mike Wheatley

Google has just released an update that makes it possible to sync Chromecast devices with Google Home audio groups.

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The update means that Chromecast users can now tie their TV speakers to other audio devices in their home. Once a TV with Chromecast is synced to a speaker group, it will play the same audio as the other speakers.

Chromecast is Google’s handy little flash-drive type HDMI video device that connects to the back of a TV or monitor. It’s primarily used to stream content from services such as Netflix or YouTube to TVs that lack the capability to do this alone, but can also be used to stream music as well.

With the update, users can now sync Chromecast with a Google Home speaker group. Google Home is Google’s smart hub that serves to connect and control an array of smart home devices together so they can act as one group. Once synced, users should see a Chromecast connected display, with each synced speaker playing the same audio track. It’s a useful feature that gives users the option to play the same song in multiple rooms in their home. So, for example, if you’re watching movie on the TV in the living room, this can be synced via Chromecast to speakers located in different rooms so people in them can keep up with what’s being said on screen. Another useful trick would be to place speakers in strategic locations in the living room to create a surround sound effect. Alternatively, you could set up multiple speakers throughout your home so the same song can be heard in each room.

Google said it would be rolling out speaker groups support for Chromecast last month, so the update was done pretty quickly. However, it seems the new feature is only available to those who’ve signed up for Google’s preview program at the moment. Luckily this is fairly easy to sign up for, accessible via the settings menu within the Google Home app.

The update is apparently available for all generations of Chromecast, though some users did not see the option to join the preview program, XDA Developers reported. However, most were able to fix this by rebooting their Chromecast device.

It’s not clear when Google plans to make the update available to all users, but with any luck it shouldn’t be too far off.