OT: Anyone use Google Home smart speakers to listen to radio on a group of speakers

[Murmansk]

I use 4 Google Home speakers in different rooms to listen to Radio 4. I have the speakers linked via the app in a group called Home.

I was used to saying "OK Google, play BBC Radio 4 on Home group" and it'd play out of all speakers and they'd all be in sync. Great, and cheaper than a set of Sonos speakers.

Over the last few months it's been getting very frustrating where I'd say the line above and then - nothing. About 70% of the time it wasn't working.

I rebooted all the speakers in the hope of them updating their software and that just resulted in a more or less 100% failure to work.

Well I've just discovered that if I say "OK Google CAST BBC Radio 4 on home" it works as it should so my frustration has been eased for now and I hope someone else may find this tip of use.

[williamwright]

Well I hope you realise it's all Marxist bollocks.

Bill

[Andy Burns]

I have 1x Lenovo Smart Clock, 2x Nest Mini Speakers and 1x Chromecast Audio feeding an external set of powered speakers.

I occasionally get that, usually after I've muted one or more of the speakers either from the Home app, or from saying "mute" to one of the speakers.

Do you get the "Sorry something went wrong, when you're ready please try again" message?

Never had to reboot them to get them playing again, usually just have to stop all audio, and/or adjust the volume of one of them, then it'll play again ... quite annoying though.

I usually say "stream" or "play" never say "cast", are you saying it behaves differently for different words? I'll try it ...

[Andy Burns]

The last couple of weeks, if you asked it to "stream Times Radio" it played that Malawi station, now it seems Rupe must have paid them enough money to get that keyword as you have to say "stream Times Radio Malawi" to get it.

But if you ask it to "stream Times Radio" it replies "I looked for Times Radio but it either isn't available, or can't be played right now" they'll get it right one day ...

[Brian Gaff (Sofa)]

I think the problem is the same as on the Echo. The bbc sounds platform does not actually support the parsing back the bit about home group correctly, instead it sends separate streams to each speaker. This results in either nothing , stuff out of synch or only one speaker playing it. The problem has been compounded more recently by the bbc stopping sites like tunein radio from supplying direct stream links to anyone in the uk for the major networks, thus the only game in town is sounds. Its interesting to note that all the local bbc stations are still on tune in, and probably work as they used to. I think the cast keyword means its actually forcing the speakers to set up the link first, rather than expecting home group to come back from sounds any more. Quite why bbc should decide to rule the uk in this way is beyond me. Brian

[Andy Burns]

Don't think so, the chromecast multicasts the packets from one of the speakers to the others in the group, i.e. you don't see four times the internet bandwidth, compared to when just streaming to a single speaker ... I don't think the BBC/global/radioplayer even needs to know about the speaker groups.

[Andrew]

I just flick the on/off switch on the £10 Phillips cassette/radio that I bought in a BHF charity shop, and if necessary whirl the analogue tuning wheel. Even works on batteries should the need arise. :-)