We cover here how to pair Google Home with a typical Bluetooth speaker. These instructions include the Google original, Mini, and Max Home speaker versions. Indeed, all them support pairing with wireless speakers, and this allows you to route sound that would normally play on the Google Home, to the wireless speaker! Since this pairing happens directly between the speaker and the Home Google speakers, there’s no need to turn Bluetooth on in the mobile device you’re using to pair the speakers together.
How to Add Bluetooth Speaker to Google Home, a Typical Bluetooth Speaker That Is
In this demo, our speaker of choice is the JBL Xtreme portable Bluetooth speaker. Why? Because it’s easy to pair with, and it sounds absolutely phenomenal. Furthermore, we’re pairing this speaker with the Mini Home Google small speaker, which provides a definite sound improvement over the speaker built into the Mini. Thus we’ll run though these directions, showing how to do this with these two devices.
Now with your Bluetooth speaker powered down, run through these step-by-step instructions to pair it to your Google speaker. Note that the pairing directions are roughly the same for Original Home, the Mini, and the Home Max from Google.
We appropriated an iPad Air tablet to configure this Bluetooth pairing.
Now, to the directions, step-by-step.
1. Find the Google Home App on your Mobile Device
To add Bluetooth speaker to Google Home we first locate the Home app on our iPad Air iOS tablet as shown in the next picture. For us, this app is on the third Home screen page. It’s pointed at by the purple arrow.
2. Run the Google Home App
The Home app displays its Home screen as seen in the next screenshot.
3. Swipe UP to Scroll Down to Find the Speaker Group and Speaker to Add that you Want
If you don’t spot the speaker group in which the Google Home speaker you wish to pair belongs, then swipe up on the Home screen until it comes into view. Swiping up scrolls you down the Home page that contains all your Google speaker devices and groups set up right now in your Google account.
Now in this demo, we pair a Mini Google Home speaker, as mentioned above. This speaker belongs our Office group. So we scrolled down the page until we saw that group and speaker, as shown in the next photo, encircled in green.
4. Tap the Google Speaker Device you Desire to Pair with your Bluetooth Speaker
Here, we pair our portable speaker with our Google Home Mini, named Office Speaker. So we tap the picture of the that device. See this inside the green circle above.
This brings up the main page for the chosen Home Google speaker, as seen next.
5. Tap the Device Settings Icon on the Speaker’s Main Control Screen
We call out the Device Settings option with the green arrow in the last screenshot.
Tapping the gear-shaped Device Settings button brings up the Device Settings screen for your chosen Home Google speaker, as shown in the next screenshot.
6. Scroll Down to the Default Speaker Setting to Continue with How to Add Bluetooth Speaker to Google Home
Scroll down the Device Settings screen, until you see the Default Speaker item. We’ve pointed this out with a purple arrow in the next screen shot.
7. Tap the Default Speaker Item
This brings up the Choose a Default Speaker for Music and Audio screen, as shown next.
At this point, you’re ready to start your Home Google speaker scanning for nearby Bluetooth units that themselves are in pairing mode. You’ve selected the Home speaker to pair with in step 4 above. So, that smart speaker is the one that scans for Bluetooth devices like our typical Bluetooth speaker, the JBL Xtreme.
But WAIT JUST A MINUTE! don’t press that Pair Bluetooth Speaker item button just yet. To add Bluetooth speaker to Google Home, we must first power up your BT speaker and put it into discovery / pairing mode.
8. Switch On your Bluetooth Speaker
Put down your mobile device for a second, and power up your speaker by quickly pressing and releasing its Power button. We note the Power button with the green arrow in the next picture on our BT speaker.
Your speaker then turns on.
But since our Google Home has never paired with this Bluetooth speaker before, it has no connection info for it in its paired-previously BT devices list. So, the speaker will not yet connect with this Google Home without some human help. Thus in our case, the light that comes on in the Power switch tells of this non-paired state by lighting up either solid white or flashing blue, as seen next. Your Bluetooth speaker may show pairing status in a different way. But the idea is the same.
After a factory default reset, and prior to any device pairings, many Bluetooth speakers automatically go into pairing mode, as does ours here. Thus, our Power lamp blinks blue without us having to press the Bluetooth key. For that scenario, skip the next step and continue on with Step 10.
Now for this demo, ours glows solid white, since we have indeed paired our chosen speaker with devices since its last factory reset. So, for teaching reasons, we’ll run through the next step, to show how to get our speaker into pairing mode.
9. Put your Speaker into Pairing / Discovery Mode
That is, press and let go of the pairing button on on your BT speaker. Our Bluetooth pairing button is highlighted in the next photo, called out by the green arrow.
When we press the Discovery Bluetooth Mode button, our speaker makes a recurring single note guitar sound four or five times. Yours may play different noises, or make no sound at all. So, it helps to know how your BT speaker signals you that it’s ready for pairing. But on ours, the Power button changes from steady white to flashing blue. See this in the last picture above, which shows the Power button glowing blue after we tapped the Bluetooth button.
10. Pick Up your Tablet / Phone Again to Continue with How to Add Bluetooth Speaker to Google Home
The screen with the blue Pair Bluetooth Speaker option should still be there, as in the next picture.
11. Tap the Pair Bluetooth Speaker Item
This starts your Google speaker scanning for any nearby Bluetooth speakers that are themselves in discovery mode. Our BT speaker is now in pairing mode. So Google Home should find it. If yours does not though, then move the speakers nearer together and try again.
The next pic shows the Bluetooth scanning in progress.
After a short pause, your Google Home should detect your Bluetooth speaker (the Xtreme in this demo), and list it as pictured next, pointed at by the green arrow.
12. Tap your Speaker on the Discovered Bluetooth Devices List to Pair It
See the screenshot above. If Google found more than one device, you’ll have to tap the one you want. A blue check mark then appears beside the speaker you chose, as seen next.
13. Tap the Done Item
Touching Done nudges our Google speaker to pair with the Bluetooth speaker we chose earlier.
The Google Home app then takes us back to its Choose a Default Speaker for Music and Audio screen, as shown next.
Just prior to returning us to the Choose Default Speaker screen, pairing to the BT speaker happens.
When the connection goes live, common Bluetooth speakers make some sort of sound, and a status lamp many have, changes color to show that a BT connection was made with no problems. We point at the now-paired Bluetooth speaker with the vivid green arrow in the last screenshot.
The BT speaker is now paired with your Google Home speaker. This means that it will now play content from Google Home.
14. You’re Done with How to Add Bluetooth Speaker to Google Home !
We can now command Google Home to play media on our Office Speaker Google Home. Then, this media now plays on our portable speaker, and not that only-so-good sounding one that’s built into our Google Home.
Note though, that only the media you ask for plays through your BT speaker. The Google Assistant voice though, still sounds from the Google smart speaker.
Finally, be sure talk right to your Google speaker, and not to the Bluetooth speaker, when asking the assistant to do things. The Google Home mic still hears your commands, even when paired with a Bluetooth speaker.
Other Posts About the Original Google Home
References for How to Add a Bluetooth Speaker to Google Home
Revision History
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- 2023-02-24: First released.