In a roundabout way, Google has finally confirmed a rumor that has been going around and which they hinted at before. They are currently working on an integration between its Nest Audio and Chromecast which should make their latest smart speaker a “home theater sound system” for your TV which has the latest streaming smart dongle from Google. No other details were provided for now but at least we now know to expect this pretty logical feature from these devices.
Google actually confirmed this future integration to the Wall Street Journal in the latter’s review of the HomePod Mini, Nest Audio, and the latest Amazon Echo. The other two non-Nest devices already have integration with the Apple TV and Fire TV respectively so it was kind of a point against the Nest Audio that it still doesn’t have one with Chromecast. And so Google had to spill the beans so to speak about the planned integration.
Apart from the fact that they’re “working on Nest Audio-Chromecast integration”, we didn’t get any other details from them. The assumption is that your TV which has the Chromecast dongle will be able to choose the Nest Audio as the default speaker output. This essentially turns your devices into a home theater system setup which is what Apple and Amazon are doing with their respective devices.
There are still a lot of unknowns for now about the integration. There’s a chance that it may just be limited to the Nest Audio although in theory it should also work with other Google / Nest speakers, particularly something as huge as the Google Home Max. We also don’t know if other Chromecast devices like the Chromecast Ultra and the previous generations will also be supported.
All of these should be answered eventually if the Nest Audio and Chromecast integration ever sees the light. According to 9 to 5 Google, the marketing campaign was to have been completed by September 30 but we haven’t heard anything official about the launch so it must have been pulled or delayed for one reason or another.
