How to customize Google Home settings?

Why you need to customize Google Home settings?

After settings up Google Home, you can start to use it immediately.

But you may not know you can customize Google Home settings to meet your needs and to get more from your Google Home.

All customization for Google Home settings can (and must) be done through Google Home app.

In this guide, I will show you how to customize Google Home settings (and Google Assistant settings), and what the options are for all Google Home devices and what are for individual Google Home devices.

What are the options to customize Google Home settings?

Google Home is actually powered by Google Assistant as explained in this page.

So, to customize Google Home settings, you have the following two options to:

• customize Google Assistant, which is tied to your Google account for all Google Home devices.
• customize Google Home (and Google Assistant) settings for individual Google Home device.

These two options to customize Google Home settings work to compliment each other, both from Google Home app.

Some Google Assistant settings and customization will affect all your Google Home devices using Google Assistant.

This means if you have more than one Google Home device, you only need to customize Google Assistant for Google home once. The customization will be applied to all Google Home devices automatically.

Some Google Home settings and customization are tied to individual Google Home device. For example, you can turn on or off  personalized results in individual Google Home.

In short, some settings may affect other Google Home devices and some settings (customization) only work in individual Google Home device.

This is actually convenient for most Google Home owners.

You only need to customize some common settings once and therefore, it is not necessary to repeat the process for all new Google Home devices. At the same time, privacy settings can be turned on/off in individual Google Home device.

How to customize Google Home settings?

To customize Google Home settings, you have to use Google Home app.

In addition, the specific Google Home device whose settings are to be customized should be powered on and connected to the WiFi network.

In Google Home app, as shown below, you can access the Google Home device either:

• from navigation menu (Hamburger menu marked as A in screenshot below) —Devices
• or, from device shortcut (marked as B in the screenshot below)

The result of these two ways to access Google Home device in the Google Home app is identical.

As shown above, in the device list, you should be able to find the Google Home device.

If you cannot find your Google Home in the list, you should check the LED lights color in the device.

As shown above, you can tap the menu button (3 vertical dots), then tap Settings to access Google Home settings.

You can then start to customize Google Home settings.

What can you customize for Google Home?

In the device settings, you can find the items(aspects) for customization.

1. Linked account (s)

Google Assistant requires a Google account. You can link a Google Account to this Google Home device.

If you have more than one Google account in the mobile device, you can select it here.

2. Music

You can set the default music service provider from Google Play music, YouTube Music, Spotify or Pandora.

As explained in Google Home setup guide, you can only choose one from the list because this will be the default one.

Other service providers can be used if you specify it in voice command. For example, you can ask Google Home to  “play XXX on Spotify”.

3. Home control

You can use Google Home to control linked smart devices, e.g., Nest Thermostat, Philips Hue.

If you do not have any such smart devices, you can ignore it.

4. Shopping list

By default, Shopping list is linked to your shopping lists in Google Keep app.

5. More Google Assistant settings

As there are many settings related to Google Assistant, Google decides to move other Google Assistant settings to a dedicated page.

Tap this button to jump to that page (discussed later).

As shown in the screenshot below, items 2-5 are under Google Assistant.

6. Name

When you set up Google Home the first time, or after you factory data reset Google Home, the default name of the Google Home name is always XXXX room Home.

Of course, you can change the name for the Google Home as you want so that it is easy to know who is who.

7. WiFi

The current WiFi network name is listed here.

You can tap it to change WiFi network for Google Home (if both WiFi networks are accessible).

8. Guest mode

Google Home guest mode works identically to guest mode in Chromecast.

Your guests can use certain features of Google Home, e.g., casting audio to Google Home, if guest mode is enabled in Google Home.

You may refer to this guide on how to use Google Home guest mode.

How to customize Google Assistant settings for Google Home?

As mentioned above, from Google Home device settings page, tap More (marked as 5 in the screenshot above) to enter Google Assistant settings page (shown below).

You can also access Google Assistant settings from Google settings in any Android phones as well. However, the specific devices can only be found in Google Home app.

As shown in the two screenshots below, Google Assistant Settings are arranged in two levels:

• Device type level (Google Home or Pixel phones currently).  For example, Tap Google Home as shown above, you can find you can switch to Google Assistant settings for Pixel phones if you want.  Different types of devices may have slightly different Google Assistant settings.
• Individual device level. You can further customize Google Assistant settings for individual devices. In this guide, for example, you are trying to customize Google Home settings for a device named Family room Home.

Under device type level settings (marked as 9-16 in the screenshot below), you can change Google Assistant settings for all Google Home devices.

9. Music

This is identical to #2 mentioned above.

10. Home Control

This is identical to #3 mentioned above.

11. News

You can customize news feed for your Google Home devices.

We will discuss it later.

12. My Day

You can customize the summary info for you, including weather, traffic, schedules and other important info.

Read on for details on how to customize My Day in Google Home.

13. TV and speakers 

You can cast and control music and videos on Chromecast and Chromecast Audio devices.

It essentially makes Google Home a voice controller for Chromecast and Chromecast Audio.

14. Shopping list

This is identical to #4 mentioned above.

15. Services

Google Home allows you to access many third-party services.

This is the most interesting (and underused) features of Google Home.

16. Videos and photos

You can select Google Photos or Netflix videos to cast to Chromecast and Chromecast Audio.

Individual device settings work only on this specific device. In the screenshot below, Google Assistant settings #17-20 only work on the Google Home named Family room Home.

In other words, items #9-16 discussed above customize Google Assistant on all of your Google Home devices; while items of #18-20 customize Google Assistant on this specific Google Home device.

17. Device address

You can customize Google Home address to get localized weather and traffic info.

18. Personal results

Google Home can offer your personal results like calendar events, reservations, orders and many more.

But this requires Google Assistant to scan your emails and calendar.

You can turn on such info in individual Google Home device.

19. YouTube Restricted mode

YouTube restricted mode allows you to filter out some contents.

Again, you can turn on/off this mode on individual Google Home devices.

20. Assistant language

Currently, Google Assistant is available for US English only.

In the future, you may have options to choose other languages.

You may also notice that there are some Google account settings (marked as 21 and 22 in the screenshot above) related to Google Assistant.

These settings are your Google account settings that are used by Google Assistant.

You can, of course, customize these settings. But this will affect all your Google products.

For example, under Personal info (marked as 21 in the screenshot above), you can change home and work address.  Such changes will affect other services that use this info, for example, Google Maps.

How to customize Google Home news feed?

As mentioned, you can customize Google Home news feed.  And any changes would affect all Google Home devices.

In other words, you cannot customize news feed for individual Google Home devices.

You can choose news feed source and arrange the order of the feed.

To customize news feed order, you can tap and hold a feed and move it up and down, then drop it in the desired location.

For example, as shown below, you can hold the BBC Global News (marked as 1), then move it up. Once you drop it above Fox News, you will get BBC Global news before Fox News.

Tap Customize (marked as 2 in the screenshot below), you can find all available feeds.

To enable or disable a news feed, you can tap the selection icon. If there is a check mark, it means it is enabled. If it is an empty square, it means it is disabled.

How to customize My Day for Google Home?

You can bring up My Day with voice command  Hey Google, what’s my day? or Hey Google, Good morning!  or some other similar commands.

As mentioned above, you can customize My Day for Google Home.

To customize My Day for Google Home, you can tap My Day in Google Assistant settings page (marked as 12).

In the My Day page as shown above, you can enable/disable weather, work commute, next meeting and reminders.

You can also customize weather info and work commute settings.

After the summary, you can optionally enable or disable news feed.

Can you customize Google Home settings now?

If you have any questions on how to customize Google Home settings or customize Google Assistant, please let us know in the comment box below.

The community will help you.

Please check other Google Home guides here.