The moment you start using a smart speaker, it is normal that in a short time you end up adding more in different parts of your house. Then you set up groups, you learn new options until you find yourself in the position of knowing how to transfer music from one smart speaker to another to keep listening to the song or album that you like so much.
Individual and group speaker playback
When you start listening to a podcast or a song, you can do it on one of your smart speakers only or on several of them. The latter is ideal if you are going to be moving from one place to another and want to enjoy the best experience regardless of whether you are in the kitchen, the living room or your room.
To carry out both actions there is not much mystery. For the first one, you just have to go to the speaker where you want the content to be played and that’s it. For the second one, then more or less the same, the only difference is that you will have to tell the assistant that you want to use a group of speakers that you have previously created or the respective command to do it globally if it allows it.
Depending on whether you use Google speakers or compatible with Google Assistant, Amazon Echo or compatible with Alexa or Apple‘s HomePods with Siri, all this of the groups will work in one way or another. So, in case you don’t have much experience, let’s quickly see how groups are created for each of the platforms.
Create a speaker group with the Alexa app
To create a group of speakers with the Alexa app, you just have to do the following:
- Open the Alexa app
- Tap on the devices icon
- Now tap the + icon in the upper right corner
- Click Add group
- Select the speakers that you want to be part of it and then assign a name
- Clever
Within the app itself you will also see an option that does not refer to a group of devices but to multi-room audio. You can use it, but it is basically the same, create a group with the speakers that you want to use when and you will also have to assign a name to it to be able to indicate that you want that audio to sound everywhere.
Create a speaker group with Google Assistant
Now suppose that what you use with speakers with or compatible with Google Assistant, to create a group you have to do something very similar to the above:
- Open the Google Home app
- Hit the + icon to Create speaker group
- Select the devices you want to be
- Assign a name and
- Give to save
- Clever
Again, as you can see, it is a very simple process that will only take a few minutes. Now you just have to tell Assistant to play in the group and your music will start playing everywhere you have one of the speakers configured within it.
Create HomePod Group
In the case of the HomePod and HomePod mini there are some differences. You can create a group of two speakers or a pair of speakers to enjoy stereo sound, but unless they are all in the same room, there is no group as such.
That doesn’t mean you can’t play music on all the speakers you have at the same time. All you have to do is tell Siri as is: “Hey Siri, play music everywhere.” Apple’s voice assistant will know perfectly well that it has to do this on all the HomePods assigned to your Home app.
How to transfer music from one speaker to another
Very well, the group and individual reproduction in each speaker is something that everyone already controlled with relative ease. But if you use your smart speakers regularly and go from one place to another, surely you have already been tempted or you will have asked the question about whether it is possible to send the music that sounds in one of the speakers that you have to another. Either because you are going to move rooms or because one has more quality than the other.
Well, here is a bit of everything, not with all the voice assistants and speakers of each of these companies it is just as simple and even the application or service that is being used affects it.
Google Stream Transfer
In the case of speakers with Google Assistant, it does not matter if they are from Google itself or not, there is a function called Stream Transfer . Thanks to it you can send music without complications from one speaker to another just by asking.
That is, you will only have to say: “Ok, Google: send the music to the speaker in the living room” The assistant will know how to interpret your order and will carry it out. So very good on the part of the search engine company in this regard.
Transferring music on the Amazon Echo
Although we think that Alexa is the voice assistant that offers the best user experience, something as basic as being able to send the audio that is playing from one speaker to another to continue there does not allow it.
No matter how much you tell him to do it, he will not understand it and if you ask him to stop and continue in another, neither. Even if you get close to that new speaker you want to play from. You won’t understand and it’s a bit of a bummer.
The only option that exists is to resort to Spotify which, because of how it is designed, when you start listening to music with your account on a new device, the old one stops. So, treat each speaker as an individual player, so there you can say to stop the speaker in the living room and continue on the one in the kitchen or terrace.
Send music from one HomePod to another
Finally, Siri also allows like Google Assistant to be able to move the music that is playing on one of its HomePods to another, it does not matter if it is the original or the mini. You just have to tell Apple’s assistant to which device you want to send the audio that sounds and that’s it. In a matter of seconds it will be.
As you can see, there are always situations in one or the other assistants and platforms that mean that the perfect one does not exist today.
