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Google launched its first ever smart home speaker called Google Home during an event held in San Francisco back in October, after announcing it during Google I/O over the Summer. At the time of launch, Google had promised that Google Home will be compatible with a wide range of third-party products and services and that Google will keep adding more integrations with third-party services over time to continue expanding Google Home’s capabilities. Now, it appears that Google is finally adding support for Netflix and Google Photos services in its smart home speaker.
If you happen to own a Google Home speaker, you can now play videos and photos from your Netflix account and Google Photos account, respectively, to your Google Chromecast or Cast-enabled device, by just issuing a simple voice command to your Google Home speaker. A new section called “Videos and Photos” has been added to the Google Home app, from there you will be able to link your existing Netflix account and Google Photos account. Talking about the Netflix integration, you can now play content from your Netflix library directly to the Chromecast or Cast-enabled device. To set up Netflix with Google home, you’ll need to link your existing Netflix account with the Google Home app; to do so, simply open up the Google Home app and click on the “Videos and Photos,” there you’ll see an option to link your Netflix account. Once linked, you can then start playing your favorite content on your Chromecast compatible device just by issuing a voice command to the Google Home speaker. Apart from Netflix, Google Photos integration has also been added to Google Home that means you can now watch your photos and videos stored in your Google Photos account directly on a Chromecast or Cast-enabled device, just by giving a simple voice command to your Google Home speaker.
It seems like not all users are seeing this integration going live for them, while some are reporting that linking the Netflix account didn’t work for them, indicating the feature is not ready for the prime time yet. Google has been doing its best to improve its AI capabilities lately; just a few days ago Google released an API called “Actions on Google,” which basically gives third-party app developers a way to create custom Google Assistant commands for their apps and services.
