Here’s How to Force Enable Google Home Bluetooth Streaming

During Google I/O 2017, Google promised many new features would come to its smart home assistant device – the Google Home. The phone call feature was officially announced just the other day, but the Bluetooth audio support has only been showing up for a small handful of users since it was announced. Google is known to extensively beta test its features in waves, though occasionally they offer users the ability to enroll in preview programs so everyone is on the same page. In case you don't want to play Google's game and want to enable Google Home Bluetooth streaming right now, we've figured out a way to do this.

The following tutorial requires root access on your device. That means your device's bootloader is probably unlocked and you have a superuser binary controlled by either SuperSU or Magisk.

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Force Enable Google Home Bluetooth Streaming

The method we are using to enable Bluetooth audio streaming on the Google Home is by editing the preference file of the Google Home app. If you haven't installed the app already, please do so now.

Google Home (Free, Google Play) →

In addition, we will need a file explorer capable of browsing directories in the /data partition. This means it should be able to handle root access. While I personally use Solid Explorer, I recommend grabbing the free MiXplorer from our forums if you don't already have a file browser that you prefer.

MiXplorer (Free, XDA Labs) →

Once you've gotten a file manager app installed, fire it up. Navigate to the following directory:

  /data/data/http://ift.tt/2v6lMFX  

and open the following text file:

  sharedPrefs_ph.xml  

Within this file, locate the following two lines:

  <boolean name="DeviceSettings_enable_bt" value="false" />  <boolean name="enable_bt" value="false" />  

and change "false" to "true as such:

  <boolean name="DeviceSettings_enable_bt" value="true" />  <boolean name="enable_bt" value="true" />  

Once you've made these changes, then force close the Google Home app in settings. Open up the Google Home app and go to your Google Home Device settings page. Under Device Info you should see a new option called "Paired Bluetooth settings." Tap on "Enable Pairing Mode" and go to the Bluetooth settings page on your phone. Pair with your Google Home, and you're good to go!

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