Nest Mini speakers will connect a call, but send audio to the phone (no audio through speakers)

[rjo]

Hello! We just purchased Google Mini (2 Gen) speakers (not an option to choose above) for my mother in law because they are advertised as being able to make calls. She lives alone, and the idea was to have a way for her to call someone if she hurt herself and was unable to physically get to her phone.

However, after setting everything up, the speakers are not working as promised. We can say "Okay Google, call (name)" and the speaker will respond "Okay, calling (name)" - but after that, all sound goes to the phone. You cannot hear the phone ringing or the other person picking up/speaking - and they cannot hear us through the speaker. 

I've scoured the internet, and have triple checked all the settings we're supposed to have set up. I tried contacting support, and not surprisingly, the chat agent was polite but not helpful and ultimately told me that this wasn't a feature of the speakers (?). 

So my question is, are we supposed to be able to make and conduct phone calls through these speakers? Or do the speakers only place the call, but you have to be holding your phone and then conduct the call using your phone (which makes no sense)? If you should be able to conduct calls using the speakers, what settings do we need to fix? I'm so frustrated and about to return everything.

[rjo]

Thank you, but we already tried pairing the speaker using Bluetooth. We also tried casting the phone.  The call audio still is played through the phone. Music audio is playing correctly through the speakers.

[Marrier]

You need to use the Google Meet app (formerly a Google Duo). Then you can calling from one Google Mini to another.

[rjo]

Thank you for the tip, but according to all the information/literature online, we should *also* be able to make calls to any phone with Nest Mini (not just to other Nest Mini speakers and Google Meet customers.) 

[rjo]

Update: I was able to get the function to work with my phone (not my mother in law's phone), which confirmed for me that the speakers do in fact make and conduct phone calls, and helped narrow down where the issue was (the phone/app).

For anyone looking for solutions: I uninstalled and reinstalled the app in case there was a glitch with instillation.  There were also permissions that hadn't been set in Settings>Apps>Google Home>Permissions  - I gave the app permission to access contacts, audio, and phone (in addition to location information). This worked, and the speakers are now functioning correctly and making calls to any phone number.