Keep your Spotify and Netflix queue pure from outside influences
If you’ve got a Google Home device but want multiple user accounts for your family, Voice Match is the answer to your smart home wishes.
Beyond a simple user profile, Voice Match enables the company’s Assistant to automatically recognise who’s speaking, and offer personalised information from that person’s Google account – even individual Spotify profiles.
Read this: Google Home tips to get started
Essentially, it’s a way of building personal profiles for each person who lives in your Assistant-controlled home, and avoiding flatmates, partners and children messing up your algorithms with their nonsense.
And, don’t worry, it’s simpler than it looks, so follow the steps below.
How to set up Voice Match

The early adopter who has set up the Google Home or other Assistant speakers will already have trained Google to recognise his/her voice when they set up the device.
However, if you didn’t, or you want to manually add a device to the list, start by heading to the Google Home app on your phone and go through the following steps.
- Click your avatar icon in the top right corner
- Choose Assistant settings
- Scroll down and find Voice Match and tap it
- You then choose which device you want to add.
- You’ll see a couple of things you need to agree or disagree to regarding ‘Saving audio’ and creating ‘Personal results with your voice’.
When inviting a new Home member, you can choose the speakers that will act as Shared devices with Voice Match – Google shows you a list of the speakers on your network, and you can ‘unlink’ remove any that don’t need the service, such as a bedroom speaker, or that you don’t want to read out personal info. Hit the plus icon in the bottom right to add devices.
Each person who wants personal results should download the Home app, hit the menu and check they are signed into the Google account they want to use – you can only have one.
Then train Google to recognise your voice by saying one of the wake phrases – “Hey, Google” or “OK, Google” – a couple of times followed by some dummy sentences.
You can also retrain the voice model Google has of you at a later date if you run into problems, or you change your, erm, voice.
Which apps work with Voice Match?
When you are up and running with multiple people using Google Home speakers, you can get personalised answers to voice commands based on your Google account. These include details for flights, calendars, photos, payments, shopping lists and services.
- “Hey Google, tell me about my day” – My Day for personalised weather, news, commute, reminders, calendar and flight status)
- “Hey Google, what’s on my agenda?” – As above
- “Hey Google, add an event called Lily’s birthday” – (Calendar for personal results)
- “Hey Google, add sausages to my shopping list” – (Multiple shopping lists)
- “Hey Google, show me photos of Bolivia on TV” – Viewing personal Google Photos on a TV with a Chromecast
- You can also set up multiple card details for payments – add cards in Payments under More Settings in the Google Home app
- Voice Match also now works with streaming services, including Spotify, Netflix, Google Play Music and Pandora.
How to set up Voice Match with Spotify

The best way to make sure that your flatmate or other half isn’t voice controlling your Spotify at home while you’re out is for everyone to link their own Spotify account in the Home app, once you’ve each set up Voice Match, and set it as default.
Do this by going to Assistant Settings, then Music. Here, you can choose your streaming service and sign in to your Spotify (or Google Play Music account).
Then if Assistant recognises your voice when you say, “Hey Google, play Star Treatment,“ it will play it from your account keeping your Discover Weekly vibes intact.
You can also select No default provider which means that the speaker will use someone else’s account – not ideal if the whole point is to keep profiles separate, although obviously some people might not be signed up to any compatible services.
How to set up Voice Match with Netflix

Setting up Voice Match on Google Assistant with Netflix is much the same. Head to your Profile section again, then Assistant Settings and then Videos and Photos. Here, you will see Netflix as an option, you can link it and select your personal profile from within Netflix.
If you have a TV with a Chromecast dongle plugged in or Chromecast built-in it will automatically appear in your Google Home app if it’s connected to the same Wi-Fi network. You can rename it and also allocate it to a room e.g. living room.
If you have a Chromecast, you can also say “Hey Google, play The Good Place on Netflix” and it will automatically sign in to your profile on the TV, as per your voice.
There’s a rub for Android TV owners though – these TVs, like Sony’s Bravia range, have Chromecast built in, so you can cast from apps like Netflix and YouTube on your phone. But, annoyingly, Android TVs don’t support Voice Match for Netflix yet – your speaker will tell you exactly this if you try.
Rumors suggest it’s coming soon though.
How to remove Voice Match
You can remove Voice Match from Google Home to prevent your Assistant from reading out personal information on that device. Make sure that your mobile device or tablet is connected to the same Wi-Fi network as Google Home.
- Open the Google Home app.
- Go to Profile > Assistant Settings > Voice Match.
- Tap ‘X’ next to any device to remove from your account.
- You can also choose to remove voice match from all eligible devices