Google adds real-time multi-room audio grouping to Nest Hub and other smart displays

Most smart speakers and displays have a feature that'll let you group multiple devices in a pair to give you multi-room audio. 

Google is now rolling out a feature to smart displays that'll let you start playing music on a smart display and then group multiple cast-enabled devices, including speakers, smart displays and Chromecasts, in real-time. The feature works with audio apps like Spotify, Pandora, YouTube Music, and others.

To start, begin playing some music and then tap the icon in the bottom left corner of your smart display's screen. From there you can tap to add or remove devices from your new multi-room audio setup.

This feature also lets you control the audio of each speaker or display added to your group as well as the master audio of the entire group.

Google says it's now rolling out this new multi-room audio feature to all Nest Hub, Nest Hub Max, and other compatible Google Assistant-enabled smart displays today. The same feature will be coming to the Google Home app later this fall.

You can already manually create speaker groups in the Google Home app, but this new feature is meant to let you quickly create a group of speakers that you normally wouldn't combine in a multi-room audio setup. For example, you may not typically pair your speaker in your kitchen with one in your baby's room, but this feature could let you quickly make a new multi-room setup if you're trying to soothe the baby with music.

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