Google has launched a new media view for Nest Hub displays. The new view means no more walking into every room to change the music volume, or turn off the TV.
The new media view brings you a clear view of which devices in which rooms are playing media, plus granular speaker controls, a global pause button, and fully remote media control.
The updated controls live in the single-swipe-down menu that google calls the Home View, inside the “Media” sub-menu. This new Media View offers you quick controls for all your speakers, smart displays, and speaker groups, for both initiating media playback and controlling it while it’s in progress.
By default, tapping “Play music” for a given device simply plays varied music from your primary linked music service’s library. At the top right, you get a convenient “Pause all” shortcut for killing music anywhere in your home.
If you tap the left side of a given device’s media card in this view while it’s playing media, you’re offered the same full-screen controls for the service that you’d get as if it were playing on this device.
Tapping the Cast icon and device name on the right opens a different set of controls allowing you to redirect the stream to a new device, stop it entirely, and set the volume.
Start media in any room from a Nest Hub device
- Open the media view
- Find your speaker group
- Hit play music.Â
- Break free and dance away!
Just need one speaker on? You can control each device individually on the media view.
Pause all connected media
Hit the Pause all button on the top right corner to pause all connected media devices in the house. So you can pause media in the kitchen, the bedroom and the living room?
View all active media sessions playing on any connected device
You can see specific information about each connected device at one glance, including:
- Which devices or groups the media is playing
- Room the device is in
- Content provider (e.g. Spotify, YouTube)
- Song/show title
- Artist name
Control active media sessions
You can control any connected media devices from one hub with the tap of your finger, including:Â
- Play media
- Pause media
- Audio – Tap next track or previous track
- Video – Tap forward 30 seconds or back 10 seconds
Control the volumeÂ
With multiple Nest devices around the house, the sound can get overwhelming. You can set volume thresholds to keep the sound as loud or quiet as you want it. Set the volume to stay at 50% after 9pm for a relaxing night once Keira goes to bed.
