Is Google Nest Audio Wireless

No, the Google Nest Audio is in fact not wireless. But it does connect very easily to your internet and/or smartphone via Bluetooth if needed.

That was the easy answer at least. It depends on what answer you were looking for. Everything about the Nest Audio speaker is wireless, you connect to it wirelessly and it has a wireless internet connection.

You cannot actually connect to it with a wire at all. The only input it has is its power source.

You’ll need to always have the Nest Audio speaker connected to an outlet for it to work because it has no battery pack included. So I feel it’s meant to be a rather stationary product.

What I mean by “it feels it’s meant to be a rather stationary product” is that you have a speaker, which is easily connected wirelessly but still has to remain close enough to an outlet and is actually cheap enough to consider buying multiple speakers.

I think this is what Google has in mind for us to do; buy multiple speakers to have around the house.

I have at the moment of writing this article, 2 Nest audio speakers and a Google Home Mini. One in the bedroom which is also close to the bathroom, one in the living room/kitchen, and one in the office.

They all perfectly connect to my wireless network (Wifi) and works in harmony with each other. When you have it set up like this, making the Nest Audio a non-wireless speaker makes perfect sense because once you’ve connected it to the outlet and Wifi, it’ll forever be connected and powered on. It’s a very reliable piece of hardware and software.

With that said, I have wished my Nest Audio speaker was truly wireless and had a battery pack as well many times. The audio is very good and it would have been perfect for taking out into the garden in the summer.

At least the Nest Audio speaker doesn’t really care where it’s placed, just as long it’s in range to the Wifi. So if you have an outlet in the garden or where ever you need the speaker to be, it’ll work perfectly fine.

If you choose to use the speaker outside, remember it’s not really built for it. It’s not waterproof whatsoever, so please consider that.

Using your Google Nest Audio as a Bluetooth speaker

If you do not have Wifi, either because it’s not currently working or if you just don’t have any, you can still use Google Nest Audio as a Bluetooth speaker.

Connecting to your Google Nest Audio with Bluetooth is very easy to do.
There are actually multiple different ways you can do it, I’ll mention the two easiest ways.

Connect Nest Audio via Bluetooth method one:

1. Turn on Bluetooth on your phone and make sure you are publicly visible.
2. Ask your Google Nest Audio the following “Hey Google, Connect to [my phone name] with Bluetooth”.

Connect Nest Audio via Bluetooth method two:

1. Ask Google “Hey Google, turn on Bluetooth”.
2. Go to your phone, turn Bluetooth on and select to pair with your Nest Audio speaker.

You can actually phrase the “Hey Google…” several different ways, it’ll work in almost 100% of all cases, I promise. If you are in doubt of if it somehow doesn’t work for you, please ask it “Hey Google, how do I connect to my phone with Bluetooth”. It’ll then proceed to walk you through it.

Using Google Nest Audio without Wifi

Can you actually use the Nest Audio without Wifi?

• As a speaker yes.
• As a voice assistant no.

I explained above, how to use it as a speaker without Wifi. So I think we got that covered. But what will not work is actually almost everything else.

I don’t think you should ever consider buying the Nest Audio speaker for the sole purpose of using it as a Bluetooth speaker.

You should buy the Nest Audio speaker because it’s so much more than just a speaker. It’s your smart home hub, your voice assistant, your daily planner, your task manager, your weather forecaster and so much more.

These features, however, rely on internet connectivity and thereby Wifi. All the thinking, searching, considering commands, voice recognition, etc. takes place in Google Cloud Services.

I think Google will eventually move parts of the intelligence in the Nest speakers to the hardware instead of keeping everything in the cloud. It makes much sense both for the user and Google.

From the user’s perspective, it should give even faster answers and more reliability when fx. losing internet connection. From Google’s perspective, they wouldn’t need to handle as much traffic and compute power to accommodate Nest features.

But I fear we have a long time before we’ll see much being moved to the hardware side.

A brief conclusion

The Google Nest Audio speaker is not built as a wireless Bluetooth speaker. It doesn’t have any battery capacity. When that is said, the Nest Audio does have Bluetooth and Wifi capability and the only wire you need is for the power source.

Hope this article helped you have a great day.

Source:
https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/7130274?hl=da
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Nest_(smart_speakers)