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Google Home can now play your kid’s CD collection

Toast Made custom real wood wrapsOne of the issues I encountered when I got a Google Home was that none of my CDs would play. I’d encoded them, uploaded to Google Play Music’s self storage location, but there was no connection between Google Assistant (home’s engine,) and the self storage section of Play Music.

This meant I had to get a subscription in order to play kids music, and that all the CDs people kept buying my kid remained mostly unplayed as I don’t have a functioning CD player I’d get within 10 feet of my kids.

That’s all changing now as Google Home/Assistant can now access your personal collection. No more second-classing your local storyteller’s CD in favor of Big Kid Nighttime CD Company, nope, everything you can get to your Google Music library you can now play from your Google Music Library.

This also means you can record a bedtime story, upload it to Play Music’s personal storage, and your kid can ask for it. While most kids are not particularly fond of listening to recordings of their parents, I’d consider recording a couple just for cold and flu season as I spend a good month a year unable to tell tales to the tots.

The Google Home updates are rolling out now, so if you’ve got something in your personal storage you want to try, just say “Hey Google, play whateversong” and see if it works.

The announcement was made yesterday, which means if you’re in an area where the update is available, your Home has probably picked it up by now or will in the next couple of days.

You will of course have to rip your own CDs or record your own stories, upload them to your Google Play Music account, and ask Home to play them, but at last the requirement for the subscription is over.

Paul King

Paul King lives in Nashville Tennessee with his wife, two daughters and cats. He writes for Pocketables, theITBaby, and is an IT consultant along with doing tech support for a film production company.