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What you need to know
- YouTube Music on Nest speakers now automatically connects to the mobile app version through a Google Cast session.
- With the new functionality you can, among other things, pause a song or play the next song in the queue on your smart speaker using your smartphone.
- This also means that the songs playing on your speaker take precedence over what’s playing on your phone.
YouTube Music will now automatically start a Google Cast session on your phone when you play music with your voice on a Nest speaker, overwriting the song currently playing on your handset.
A few Reddit users noticed the new functionality, as well as the fact that the same casting session starts automatically when playing songs on the Chromecast with Google TV dongle using the remote control. We can also confirm that this works with the Nest Hub (2nd generation).
According to Android Police, this is now live on the YouTube Music app version 6.03.52, though the update is likely a server-side change, meaning it won’t be available to all users right away. The new feature lets you control music playback on many of the best Google Assistant speakers, such as the Nest Audio, from your phone, as if you were casting music from your handset to the speaker. You can use the YouTube Music app on your phone to pause, play, skip, and adjust the volume of music playing on your Nest speaker.
For what it’s worth, these surgeries are nothing new. It’s already possible to control the playback of music on your speaker from your phone, but only if you’ve cast music from your handset by tapping the Cast button on the playback page. The latest change mimics a popular Spotify Connect feature.
So the next time you ask your Nest speaker to play music, for example, you can go to YouTube Music on your phone to adjust the speaker’s volume level. However, it should be noted that this will only work if the two devices are connected to the same Wi-Fi network. Based on our testing, it typically takes two seconds for the app to detect that YouTube Music is playing on a Nest speaker and initiate a Cast session.
However, there is a catch. Once a song starts playing on your speaker and a Cast connection is established, what’s playing on your speaker will take over the current playlist on your phone.
Some people may find this feature useful as it allows them to easily control music playback without having to touch their Nest speaker. Others, on the other hand, may find it irritating as they don’t want their phone’s current playlist to be interrupted.
Despite the name change from Google Home to Nest Audio, Google’s latest speaker focuses more on improved audio quality, faster Google Assistant response time, and a striking multicolored tower design. This device will appeal to regular Google and Nest Security users.
