Any Advice? Latency When Home Mini Paired to Bluetooth Speaker

[jlgraham]

So I'm having an issue with latency/sound delays on my Google Home Mini.

I recently purchased two Google Home Minis, and one Chromecast. The Chromecast is plugged into my TV/Home Stereo. The two minis are each paired to their own bluetooth speaker.

I was hoping to have multi-room audio via all three devices. The ChromeCast in the living room connected to the TV/Stereo, a home mini in the kitchen connected to a bluetooth speaker, and a home mini in my bedroom connected to a different bluetooth speaker.

The problem is, the units won't sync up sound/timing wise. The Chromecast is always .4 seconds or so ahead of the Home Minis.

When I un-pair the minis from bluetooth speakers (i.e. just play sound through the Mini itself), everything is synced up between the three devices.

When I pair the home minis to their respective bluetooth speakers, the two home minis/speakers are synced up, but then are out of sync with the Chromecast.

So it seems like...to do multi room audio that is synced properly you either have to A) Play directly through Google Home speakers (not connected to separate bluetooth speakers) or B) Play everything through Home devices connected to bluetooth speakers.

I understand there can be a delay with bluetooth, which is probably hard to sync up when you have multiple devices. But this really puts a damper on the main reason I bought Home devices (to replace Airplay).

Any advice is appreciated! PS, I played with the delay correction settings in the Home App, they don't help at all in this case.

 

[Rukbat]

There's one delay caused by Bluetooth, and another caused by the fact that sending a sound stream to 2 devices is actually sending 2 separate streams. (Turn 2 TV sets, if you're on cable, to the same channel and you'll see a slight timing difference between them.)

Since you're running a stream through WiFi and another stream through Bluetooth, there's no way to sync them up. (They were never designed to sync to each other - they're stand-alone protocols - you can sort of sync up a Wifi stream to multiple devices, you can sort of sync up a Bluetooth stream to multiple devices - but you can't sync a Bluetooth stream to a WiFi stream.)

 

[jlgraham]

Thanks, I figured that was the case. I was hoping someone had found a workaround but I know this isn't something Google can easily control. Since their products don't have an analog line out like the Echo Dot, I'm hoping they come up with some tech to fix this in the future (i.e. have the microphones listen for music and try to sync the timing).