How to Pair Google Home Device as a Bluetooth Speaker

Top view of the Google Home, showing a finger working the volume control touch pad.

The Google Home Device, pictured above, you can make into a Bluetooth speaker due to firmware and Google Home app updates in the last several years. In this piece, we show How to Pair Google Home Device as a Bluetooth Speaker. You can link it to a tablet or phone just as you would do on a common BT speaker. You indeed can send audio to the Mini, for room-filling, shockingly awesome sounding audio, given how small the Google Home Mini is.

Here, we connect the Google Home Mini to an iPad Air tablet as a Bluetooth speaker. This lets us play any audio that the iPad can play, through the Mini. You might wish this if you’re watching a Netflix movie or playing your Alexa music library on your iPhone, but want louder, and over all better sound than what you get from the phone speakers.

How to Pair Google Home Device as a Bluetooth Speaker: Step by Step

1. Connect All Devices to the Internet

Firstly, make sure that both your tablet and your Google Home Mini are online and connected to the internet.

2. Turn Bluetooth ON

In addition, enable Bluetooth on the source device that you’re pairing with the Google Mini. In our case, we’re pairing from an iPad Air.

Then, and assure that you see the “Now discoverable as” message, as shown next.

iPad Bluetooth Discovery Mode Screen, showing Bluetooth is ON.

3. Next, on the Tablet, Run the Google Home App to Continue with How to Pair Google Home Device as a Bluetooth Speaker

Thirdly, on the test iPad, this app appears on the third home page, as pictured next.

Google Home App entry, as shown on the iOS home screen.

The Google Home app home screen then displays, as pictured next.

Google Home app on iOS, displaying its home screen, with the hamburger menu control highlighted.

4. Then, Tap the Hamburger Item

Fourthly, find the hamburger menu control near the top left corner of the Google Home app home screen.

Tapping that control brings up the main menu window, as shown next.

The Home screen with the -Devices- menu item highlighted.

5. Tap the Devices Menu Item

This brings up the list of Google Home devices that the app knows about, as shown next.

A Google Home Device as displayed in the Google Home App, showing in the Devices list, with its Device Menu location highlighted.

6. Tap the Hamburger Menu Link for the Google Home Device You’re Going to Link as a Bluetooth Speaker

Find the control menu (hamburger) item pointed at by the purple arrow in the last picture.

Tapping this control causes the speaker device control menu to open, as shown in the next picture.

The -Settings- menu item for this device circled.

7. Tap the Settings Item

Find the Settings item in the hamburger menu as displayed in the previous picture, with the purple circle around it.

You then see the Device Settings screen for the specific Google Home Mini speaker device displayed on the previous screen. This speaker’s specific setting options are shown on the screen shown next. In our case, that device is named Office Speaker.

Note that we’ve scrolled down to the Device Settings section on this screen to find the Paired Bluetooth Devices option, as circled in the next picture.

The -Device Settings- screen with the -Paired Bluetooth Devices- option highlighted.

8. Tap the Paired Bluetooth Devices Item

Find the Paired Bluetooth Devices option circled in the previous picture.

Then, the Paired Bluetooth Devices screen then appears as shown next, where we could select a Bluetooth device from a list of devices that we’ve previously paired with, had we ever paired with any before. But since we have not, the screen is almost entirely blank.

The -Enable Pairing Mode- link highlighted.

9. Tap the Enable Pairing Mode Link

This puts the Google Home device we’re working with into Bluetooth discovery mode. That is, it will now show up when other in-range devices scan for Bluetooth Devices. Confirmation of this is shown by a black bar momentarily appearing at the bottom of the Paired Bluetooth Devices screen, as shown next.

The -Paired Bluetooth Devices- screen, showing the -Ready To Pair- message highlighted.

10. Go to the Bluetooth Settings Screen

Find Bluetooth Settings somewhere in the Settings app on your phone or tablet.

On our iPad Air, we hit the home button, tapped the Settings app, and then tapped Bluetooth on the left side of the screen, to reveal the following screen.

The iOS Bluetooth Found Devices list, showing our Google Home Device, named Office Speaker, circled.

11. Next, Tap the Desired Device in this List to Move Forward with How to Pair Google Home Device as a Bluetooth Speaker

In our case here, we wish to pair the Office Speaker Google Home Mini device, as circled above.

Then, if all goes well, your Google Mini plays a short burst of musical chord, and pairing then occurs. Your paired device then moves up from the Other Devices list to My Devices if you’re using pairing with an iOS device, as shown next for our case; the purple circled Office Speaker device.

The -Bluetooth Found Devices- list, showing Google Home Mini Office Speaker, successfully paired.

12. Return to the Paired Bluetooth Devices Screen in the Google Home App

There, you’ll now find that the Google Home App has added the source device (your phone or tablet) to its Known Bluetooth Devices list for your Google Home Mini speaker, as we show in the next picture. Our pairing source device is called Tom’s iPad.

The Google Home app displaying its -Paired Bluetooth Devices- history screen. Showing our -Tom’s iPad- device as having paired with the Google Home Device.

At this point, all your tablet’s generated sounds would play on your Google Home Mini smart speaker, which is now acting as a full fledged Bluetooth speaker. Pairing is complete.

Finally, to stop using your Google Home Mini as a Bluetooth speaker, you would unpair it from a source Bluetooth device by saying, “Okay Google, disconnect” or “Hey Google, disconnect.” Google Home Mini allows you to unpair your speaker from the source by either issuing these voice commands to it, or by going into the Bluetooth settings on your source device, and breaking the connection from there.