Can you use Google Home without Wi-Fi?

Everybody loves using new and smart technologies. One of these smart technologies is smart home technology. We all must have heard about Google Home, a smart speaker which controls everything inside your house just on your voice. Google Home smart speaker integrates many of the things such as locks, switch on the Air-Conditioner, playing music and many more things. 

You will be amazed to know that Google Home always listens to its environment. But then there arises the most important question and that is – What will happen when you lose the internet connection? Will Google Home still be able to help you if there is no Wi-Fi connection? Well, in this article we will try to look for the answer for these questions and we will also see what alternatives are there if you lose Wi-Fi connection.

Features of Google Home Smart Speaker

The Google Home Smart speaker is a well-known product developed by Google. It makes life easier by assisting you in doing things like accessing the media, managing the chores, planning your day and many more things.

Hands-free: Once you set up the device in your home, there is no manual intervention required to use the smart speaker. Only your voice is sufficient to control and manage things at your house.

Multiple Voice Support: The Google Home Smart Speaker supports more than one user. So, you can also add another family member voice.

Accessing Media: With Google Home smart speaker, you can listen to music just by asking Google home to play one.

Managing tasks: You can keep track of all of your works and your Google Assistant will remind you so that you do not forget to complete the work.

Control Home Environment: The Google Home Smart Speaker has complete access to your home. So, you can manage any of the tasks in your home.

Answering Questions: The Google Home Smart Speaker will answer your questions. Like, you can ask what the weather is going to be tomorrow and many other questions.

Can you use Google Home without Wi-Fi?

Image Source – https://smarthomestarter.com/can-you-use-google-home-without-wifi/

Before diving in to the answer of this question you must first understand that there is a difference between Wi-Fi and Internet. Most people use these terms interchangeably but in reality, a Wi-Fi can be with or without Internet. A Wi-Fi can simply act as a local area network and can be used to connect devices like different computers, printers, etc.

Now, according to a google product expert in a response to this question on the google support page, the current generation devices are not capable of working without a strong internet connection. 

However, they next generation of Google Nest devices is trying to solve this problem by placing the Google Assistant on the device itself and making it capable of LAN communications. 

It means without having an Internet connection you cannot run Google Home but without Wi-Fi you can still use Google Home by using a mobile Hot Spot with an active internet connection.

How to use Google Home without Wi-Fi?

Before answering this question, we hope that now you are familiar with the difference between Wi-Fi and Internet connection. So, if you do not have a Wi-Fi network then you can use your mobile device hotspot to connect google home to the Internet. If you do not have internet connection, then it is not possible to use Google Home smart device.

However, without an internet connection you can try some basic features of Google Assistant like calling somebody or sending a text message to your friends. These Google Assistant functions have been reported to work on a few smartphones in offline mode but we are not sure whether it will be the same for Google Home smart device also.

Setting up Google Home and connect to Wi-Fi

Image Source – https://www.the-ambient.com/how-to/connect-change-google-home-wifi-1645

You need a strong and secure Wi-Fi connection so that the Smart Speaker is always connected and listens to your voice and act accordingly. Moreover, if the Wi-Fi connection is weak, the smart speaker will face issues while working such as, poor connection or connection unestablished. You will need the following things to get started-

• A Google Nest or Google Home speaker or display.
• Google Home app’s latest version.
• Google Assistant app’s latest version.
• A Google Account which most of you will have.

A smart phone or tablet having:

• iOS 11.0 or higher/ android 5.0 or higher
• 2.4 GHz processor and 5 GHz Wi-Fi network (it does not work on a WPA-2 Enterprise network)
• Bluetooth turned on.
• An Internet connection and secure wireless network.
•  If you already use Duo for video calling, make sure that Duo is signed in with the same Google Account as your speaker or display.

Now let’s get started and set up the device

Step 1: Plug in your speaker or display to a power source using the cable provided with the device.

Step 2: Now you need you connect your mobile device to the Wi-Fi network which will be used for the speaker or the display.

Step 3: Once done, open the Google Home app and follow the steps.

Step 4: If you don’t see the steps to set up your device: then at the top left corner, tap on Add button and then tap on Set up device to finish setting up new devices in your home.

Step 5: Follow the remaining steps and then you are ready for using Google Home.

Guest Mode Casting without Wi-Fi:

Image Source – https://www.guidingtech.com/enable-google-home-guest-mode/

The Google Home Smart Speaker has a rich variety of features and one of its features is the Guest mode. The Guest mode is useful when a lot of people come to your house and want to play songs using Smart Speaker and you do not want to share the password with them, you can enable the guest mode so that the other device can get connected to the Smart Speaker without connecting to the Wi-Fi. To enable the guest mode, you need to follow the instructions step by step mentioned below:

Step 1: Download the Google Home Application and go to the settings.

Step 2: Go to the Menu.

Step 3: Enable the Guest Mode.

Step 4: A Guest Mode PIN will be activated.

Step 5: Now, using that PIN your guests will be able to use your smart speaker with their device.

Step 6: It will automatically pair the device with the smart speaker.

Step 7: In case if it is not automatically paired, you can manually do so by connecting the device with PIN generated.

Music on Google Home without Wi-Fi:

Although you cannot do much with Google Home without a stable Internet Connection and a Wi-Fi connection but you can still use the device as a portable speaker to play music stored on your mobile phone. This is a very good thing because if you face sudden internet dysconnectivity then at least you can listen to some music.

Step 1: Pair your mobile device and the Google Home Speaker together

Using the Google Home App:

• First you need to open the Google Home App.
• Then search for the device and tap on pair.
• Scroll down the General Settings and select the enable pairing option.

Using your Smart Phone device:

• Turn on the Bluetooth of your phone.
• Search for the google home device in the device list.
• Tap on its name to pair the device.

Using the Computer’s Bluetooth settings:

Turn on the Bluetooth of your PC.

Search for the device in the device list.

Click on the name of the speaker you would like to pair. 

Step 2: Connect your smartphone and the Google Home device – You should keep in mind that if your speaker has been paired with multiple mobile devices, then it will connect automatically to the most recently device that was paired. In this case you will need to check that which mobile devices are connected to your Google Home device. 

If you are using your smartphone:

• Open the Bluetooth settings on your Smartphone.
• Under the section called “Available devices,” tap on the speaker that you had paired to your mobile device.

You can also do this using your voice:

• Say “Ok Google or “Hey Google”, then…
• To Connect – “Connect” Or “Connect to Bluetooth”
• To Disconnect – “Disconnect” Or “Disconnect Bluetooth”

Your smartphone or the mobile device will remain connected to your Google Home speaker until you disconnect it manually

Step 3: Play your favorite music – Once your devices are paired and connected to each other then you can use the voice commands to play your favorite music.

Are any other alternatives available?

In this guide, we have talked about the Google Home Smart Speaker and whether it can be used without Wi-Fi. You should know that to perform in a full-fledged manner these devices need to be connected to Internet.

We do not think that there is any first-generation smart home device available which works completely in offline mode and whenever we think about these technologies Google comes in to mind at the first place. Let’s hope that with time we will be able to see some more technical enhancement and these smart devices will come with the features which will not require Wi-Fi to work.

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