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Cast cast audio to speaker pair

Cory1
Community Member

I have two nest audio speakers. They are in the same room on my Google home. They are the same model and firmware. my phone and the speakers are on the same Wi-Fi.  When they are set up individually I can cast to them from YouTube music app, but if I pair the two speakers, the speaker pair do not show up in my devices to cast to. If I unpair them, they show up fine as individual devices. As a speaker pair, they show up fine in the Google home app, but I cannot cast to them. The only way to get them to play music is to request by voice. However, another strange behavior is that sometimes if the music is playing and I ask to turn up or down the volume, the speaker pair will say they volume cannot be controlled.   I've tried deleting them, resetting them, unpairing them and pairing them again. Again. I tried creating a group, and putting them in a group. The group doesn't show up as something I can cast to either

3 Recommended AnswerS

Shop
Community Member

I don't understand how this is the solution, seems more like uncertainty based on  semantics than actual real-world usage. When you pair two individual speakers together they "act as one device" meaning the two speakers are treated as a single stereo output in software, speaker groups are also treated as a single output outside of the home app. You were able to cast to speaker pairs and groups for a while, it's only up until the last 2-3 weeks there's been issues which more then likely has to do with the conclusion of the recent Sonos vs Google lawsuit, which is why there's issues with volume controlling multiple devices.

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Cory1
Community Member

I agree. Speaker pairs and groups are useless without the ability to pick them from the list of devices to cast to. Casting only by voice is brutal. Sure I could say, play my x playlist, but then I can't grab my phone or tablet and jump to a particular situation song in the list. Or maybe edit the list on the fly. And the issue is only groups and pairs. Definitely something else going on

View Recommended Answer in original post

Cory1
Community Member

 I accepted it as the answer, but only because I accepted the fact that pairing is now pointless and in fact creates less functionality, so people shouldn't even try-- so they do not think they have set it up wrong or keep trying to reset. It is not something we can fix. It is up to google to do something. 

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18 REPLIES 18

GothamNY
Bronze
Bronze

Hi @Cory1 the speakers are working as designed. You can stream to a pair of speakers using voice but any manual controls, including casting, manages the left speaker or casting is disabled when set up as a speaker pair as the second speaker is a slave. Hence, when disconnected, the second speaker, on the right needs to be reconnected to your account.

The speaker volume control has been thoroughly covered by this post and I have nothing further to add or no additional information on that front.

Cory1
Community Member

So to clarify, when you click the cast button in an app like YouTube music, you will not see the speaker pair (or any groups) as a device to cast too? So you cannot cast to a group of speakers or any speaker pair?

That is very odd, because I noticed yesterday that every once in a while the speaker pair  DOES show up in the list of devices to cast to. Not often, but once in a while and sometimes seem like  if I have been connecting to it in the home app. For example, if I click on cast, no speaker pair shows up in the list. Then, if I open the home app, change the volume on the speaker pair, even though nothing is playing, go back to YouTube music, click cast and the speak pair is there as an option

It seems your initial post has been edited because there are relevant details no longer included that I responded to based on your questions and original set of assumptions.

I've never had speaker pairs show to cast to as an option and support documents seem to indicate that it's not an option or shall I say it's silent on that matter. If the pair is added to a group it will probably work within that group but that pair act as a "single" device. The meaning of "act as a single device" is rather unclear since you can't have stereo with a single device since it's one channel and stereo is two-channel. It's also possible that casting and streaming have different implementations in the grouped/paired scenario.

Why it shows sometimes and not others is a mystery and is not unheard of -- it could be a backend test or some other thing that only Google knows, so there is no explanation or at least not one that I can provide.

Considering the convenience of using voice to accomplish playing music from youtube music to any, some, or all speakers using voice, I'm not really clear if this is an issue or you're simply wondering aloud.  Why the need to cast on speakers with access to the same source, YouTube Music, for content? One gets stereo music using voice. For me, casting is as indirect as one can get for playing music -- stream to phone, the phone then sends stream signal to speaker versus stream direct from cloud to speaker.

Cory1
Community Member

Casting from my device manually, rather than by voice, allows me to explore YouTube music, hit play, try something out for a minute or two, flip to another song. Maybe scroll through a playlist and select a different song. Seems strange to me that Google would set it up that I can't be in my app exploring and not able to then cast to a pair of speakers. Guess I will move them and go back to casting to my audio Chromecast to my old stereo. I bought the speakers to replace the stereo, but oh well. 

I getcha, but I think you can still experience the exploration in YTM without giving up anything. Now it's my turn to think out loud. 😂

Create playlists of things you want to try out during the explore phase and then request your own self-made discovery playlist using voice without giving up the stereo pair or having to go back to using the audio Chromecast. It's going to be the same effort and reason you're using for wanting to cast, the only difference is you explore first, create a list, and then call it up by voice in stereo. With the added bonus of if you hear something you like in that list, you 👍 and it moves to your "My Likes" playlist.

Anyway, just another way to think about the process without sacrificing your stereo pair.😉

Jake
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey Cory1,

 

I wanted to check in and see if you are still in need of any help? Please let me know, as I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.

 

Thanks so much, GothamNY for the helpful information and details.

Best regards,
Jake

Cory1
Community Member

Thanks for the offer. I am just stumped on the Speaker pair feature. As soon as I pair a set of speakers, they no longer show up in the devices to cast to. Or more accurately, they show up once in a while. They are the same nest audio, same firmware, same Wi-Fi. When they are separated, no problem. I am thinking it is related to the Sonos lawsuit

Shop
Community Member

I don't understand how this is the solution, seems more like uncertainty based on  semantics than actual real-world usage. When you pair two individual speakers together they "act as one device" meaning the two speakers are treated as a single stereo output in software, speaker groups are also treated as a single output outside of the home app. You were able to cast to speaker pairs and groups for a while, it's only up until the last 2-3 weeks there's been issues which more then likely has to do with the conclusion of the recent Sonos vs Google lawsuit, which is why there's issues with volume controlling multiple devices.

Cory1
Community Member

I agree. Speaker pairs and groups are useless without the ability to pick them from the list of devices to cast to. Casting only by voice is brutal. Sure I could say, play my x playlist, but then I can't grab my phone or tablet and jump to a particular situation song in the list. Or maybe edit the list on the fly. And the issue is only groups and pairs. Definitely something else going on

GSzabados
Community Member

I don't know who has accepted @GothamNY's answer in this question. But that is just pure bull**bleep**...

 

The whole **bleep**show started when Google used patented technologies and failed to pay royalties to Sonos. Then Sonos sued Google and won.

 

Before this a speaker pair was working as expected and as they were advertised. They were working as a stereo pair. And anything could have been casted to them. Nowadays they are just paired and useless as a piece a brick from a speaker perspective, because you cannot stream anything to them.

 

I don't know why @GothamNY or @Jake forgot to mention these details. But they are "experts" of the topic and must be aware of it. But forgetful enough to give the right information. 

Shop
Community Member

Yes, and the worse part is this page pops up at the top of the search results, their answer is absolutely misleading; it's like they've never used the speakers themselves. 

Cory1
Community Member

 I accepted it as the answer, but only because I accepted the fact that pairing is now pointless and in fact creates less functionality, so people shouldn't even try-- so they do not think they have set it up wrong or keep trying to reset. It is not something we can fix. It is up to google to do something. 

GSzabados
Community Member

What @Shop wrote, that reflects the reality. The answer has no connection how the devices should work. I have 2 Nest Home speakers set up as a pair since I have them November 2020. They used to work as a stereo pair, they used to be part of Groups (multiple of them) as a Stereo Pair, and they used to play music together, streamed from the Google Home app, or from the Spotify app, or by a voice command.

 

Currently the speakers not working as a Group, if music streamed to a Group, only a single speaker would start to stream. If music streamed to the stereo pair, doesn't matter what way, the only answer what I get, Sorry, something went wrong. When you're ready, give it another try. 

BUT it does nothing. It used to work, but since the end of December 2021, the whole Google Home ecosystem is a shambles and they don't work for any streaming. Disregarding the fact that it should work as a Stereo Pair:

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/7559493?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid#zippy=%2Cgoog...

So the correct answer to this question:

It is not working because Google hasn't paid the royalties to Sonos, and mislead all of its clients just to be able to sell it phones in the US. 

And just to be clear, I am using these products in Europe, where the ruling of the court has no jurisdiction, about sales of any of Google's products.

GSzabados
Community Member

And just out of the blue, today the speaker pair accepts casting. I asked to play music from Spotify and it works. Casting from the Google Home app works as well.

Let's hope it will stay this way for the future as well...

And again, a day later, it is not working again. This is absolutely hosed!

Stang70Fastback
Community Member

Just bought a pair of Nest Audio speakers to use as a pair. Having the same issues here. Kinda pissed that Google still advertises this pairing functionality if it is indeed broken due to the Sonos Lawsuit. I feel like they'll have another lawsuit on their hands if they don't find a different way of resolving this...

Contact their support and abuse it!

 

I have contacted the Google Home support recently twice. One person had no clue about any issues. The second admitted that it is not working for some people, and they know about it.

I told that I will return it, and the person told me that on this basis as the speakers are working individually they are not accepting any returns.

 

I am sending everyday a feedback through the speaker, maybe twice a day, that speaker pair unable to play music, just after I tried to play music on them.

 

If you are in the US, please, start a lawsuit, forcing them to fix it or pay the royalty fees.

This is a scandal!

Azarco
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey All,

Thanks for visiting the Community. 

Since this thread hasn't had activity in a while, we're going to close it to keep content fresh.

We apologize for the trouble this has caused you. If you still need assistance in playing music on your speaker pair, feel free to submit another post and provide as many details as possible so that others can lend a hand.

Thanks,
Alex