How to sleep easier with Google Homes white noise feature

Table of Content

• Amazon Holiday Sale:  Garmin vivoactive 4S, Smaller-Sized GPS Smartwatch only $159.99
• 'Hey Google, play the sound of rainfall'
• How the Google Assistant can help you fall asleep with these ambient sounds
• How to listen to white noise using Google Home
• GearBrain helps you find, buy and connect any smart device.

Not only can Google Home smart speakers or displays play white noise, but there’s a plethora of ambient sounds you can choose from besides white noise. Unless you set a timer or interrupt the playback, the ambient sound of your choice will continue playing for 12 straight hours. Note that Google Home will only continue playing ambient sounds for a maximum of one hour. As far as I know, there’s not yet any way to set a timer in case you want them to run longer. Still, this is a really convenient feature to have for those of us who don’t like falling asleep to total silence. Alexa can also do similar things through installable skills or by playing a white noise track pulled from Spotify, but it’s not quite as seamless as Google’s feature.

You can leave feedback about this white noise change in the Google Home app or on the web. He has reviewed smartphones for Pocketnow and Android Authority and loves building stuff on his YouTube channel, MOD. He has a dangerous obsession with coffee and is afraid of free time. Alternatively, you can ask for Google Assistant to play a specific sound.

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You can just say, “Okay Google, help me relax” or “Okay Google, play ambient noise,” and you’ll get something picked at random. All of Google's ambient sounds can be played by all Google and Nest smart speakers and displays. This includes the Google Home, Home Mini and Home Max, plus the Nest Mini, Google Home Hub, and Nest Hub Max. Alternatively, you can ask the Google Assistant on your smartphone, then have the sound play through the phone's speaker, earphones, or through a Bluetooth-connected speaker. "White noise" is among the 14 ambient noises available from Google Assistant, along with "babbling brook," "fireplace," "ocean" and others.

I haven’t been able to figure out a pre-built way to do this yet either, and its the last missing part to the bedtime routine we do. And while I could play white noise sounds for an hour, my wife really wants it all night like it does when requested via voice. All Google Home and Google Nest speakers have Chromecast-like functionality, of course, so you can send any ambient sound or white noise track you like over to the speaker using your phone.

'Hey Google, play the sound of rainfall'

In his spare time, he also tests out the latest drones, electric scooters, and smart home gadgets, such as video doorbells. Before his tenure at Tom's Guide, he was the Reviews Editor for Laptop Magazine, a reporter at Fast Company, the Times of Trenton, and, many eons back, an intern at George magazine. He received his undergraduate degree from Boston College, where he worked on the campus newspaper The Heights, and then attended the Columbia University school of Journalism. Between a thread on the Google Nest Community and Reddit, there are nearly 100 complaints.

It will show you all the smart devices compatible with Google Assistant enabled devices. You'll hopefully be too blissed-out to notice, but eventually these recordings do loop, and will continue to play for a solid 12 hours unless you tell Google Home otherwise. Previously, it looped the White Noise sound every hour, but now the sound is repeated every 10 minutes, something users find annoying and repetitive. On top of that, the previously crisp sound file is now apparently "muffled" and quieter than before.

How the Google Assistant can help you fall asleep with these ambient sounds

These include crackling fires, roaring rivers, the distant wildlife of a forest, or weather like rain and thunderstorms. This is a cool plugin, but I was also interested in a way to just use the built in Google sounds. But as I said I have no idea if it will be available, but I’ll keep dreaming. Wish google would add more starter options for their routines like alexa so it was easier to do things like this. I’m curious to see if other folks have ideas though as I’ve had similar problems in the past. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips.

Now that you have your Home set up and ready to go, all you need to do is say is something like “Ok Google, play white noise.” ‘White noise’ can be swapped out for other types of background audio. Just say, “Hey Siri, play sounds,” and the sounds that it picks will be ambient, relaxing ones—you’ll get a voice notification that tells you the sound that Siri has picked. Give some of this relaxing background noise a go on your own Google Home; just say “Play” and the name of the sound. But good luck getting “Country sounds” to work; Home really wants to believe we're asking to listen to something on Google Play Music. If you already own a Google Home, you can skip straight to step #2. If you’ve just purchased a Home, you should read ourAndroid Basics on setting it up.

Use Google Home to play white noise effortlessly (

Search for “ambient” on YouTube Music, for instance, and you get a number of premade playlists covering piano, bass, post rock and more. In case you didn't know, Google Assistant devices like the Nest Hub can play white noise ambient sound to help you or your young ones get to sleep. However, multiple users have noticed that Google recently changed that to something that loops more frequently and has a muffled sound, according to 9to5Google. As a result, they and their infants and toddlers are apparently losing sleep over it. Like Alexa, it's very simple to play ambient sounds or white noise with Google Home. You can specifically request certain sounds through Google Play Music, Spotify or YouTube Music.

If you’ve got a Google smart speaker with a display, then you can pause playback with a push on the touchscreen, and you get a token image alongside your sounds. If you’re trying to fall asleep to certain noises, say, “Okay Google, stop playing in...” and the sound will shut off after the time period specified. Well, with the right voice commands your Google Home can soon be helping you chill out to the sounds of waves crashing on the beach, a gentle spring shower, or even some neutral white noise. The smart speaker (as well as any other Google Assistant-enabled gadget) can now play an assortment of ambient noises, from fireplaces to rainfall to white noise. It's fairly simple to activate this feature, but you need to know what to say.

"Very annoying you have to set the volume to 70 percent," another noted. A pioneering recommendation platform where you can research, discover, buy, and learn how to connect and optimize smart devices. He oversees all evergreen content and oversees the Homes, Smart Home, and Fitness/Wearables categories for the site.

Make sure you’re running the latest software on your HomePod and your iPhone to be sure you’ve got the update. People like using their Google Assistant Smart Displays and speakers to play white noise before sleeping. Google earlier this week changed the white noise ambient sound and there has been an onslaught of complaints from Home/Nest users. White noise is included as a bonus ambient sound, so it might pop up at random alongside the other 14. If you specifically want white noise, just say, “Okay Google, play white noise.” Again the track lasts for an hour before repeating .

With your Google Nest or Home speaker or display, you can relax and unwind with a variety of soothing ambient sounds. To play white noise for 8 hours, just say “OK, Google, play white noise for 8 hours“. Or you can stop it by giving the device a new task like Play music.

All Google and Nest speakers and displays can help you sleepGearBrainFinally, there are some third-party options to consider. This voice app includes 45 hour-long sleep sounds like thunderstorms, rain and lullabies. They can all be set to an endless loop, if you want to keep the sound going all night. Thankfully, part of this routing can be as simple as asking the Google Assistant to play soothing sounds to help you get to sleep. The voice assistant is loaded with 15 different ambient sounds, ranging from running water and rainfall, to distant thunderstorms and white noise. Being able to pipe ambient sounds through your HomePod is a feature only recently added to Apple’s minimalist smart speaker, so if you’ve been waiting for the functionality to arrive, wait no longer.

GearBrain helps you find, buy and connect any smart device.

Or, even better, you can create routines and automatize the process. Stephen is a managing editor at Android Police, where he helps people find words that are good, and put them in orders that are good, too. Most of the time those words tell people about the latest smartphone news, keeping them in the know about the newest devices, most recent software updates, and next-gen features coming down the pike. He's been working in tech media for over a decade, including stints at Phone Arena and Pocketnow. Occasionally spotted across the American Northeast, Stephen can be cautiously approached after signaling goodwill by waving a shiny new phone in his direction.