theITbaby

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Informativemusic

Hours making google kid profiles to find I have to undo

So, I’ve got a 5yo and an 8yo. They’ve been using the Google Homes we have in the house to play music for most of their lives. They also have not, until this week, had profiles on Google because there’s been no reason for this.

TL;DR – Google’s YT Music doesn’t work on child profiles under 13. Still.

It became sort of an issue recently that each one wants their own Roblox account, Minecraft account, and Messenger Kids account. Each one wants their device to look a certain way. I can’t blame them.

I see what each one manages to do to the other’s tablet/device each time and yeah, it’s a pain. So hah hah, I decide it’s time to set each of the kids up with an old phone and train Google on their voice so they can voice unlock things and it knows who they are.

A long time ago Maggie and Google used to be friends. She’d ask it what her name was and it would reply with whatever she set. At some point along the way it lost her voice (or her voice changed,) and I guess we’ve been using guest mode this entire time because the instant I had her train the voice recognition again, no music for her.

Yup, YouTube Music / YT Music, which we were forced to move to from Google Play Music during the rebranding, does not support child profiles or anyone under 13 using it. This is July 2021, literally over a year after we were forced to say goodbye to a working music service for a service that launched with no playlist support on Nest/Home.

So yeah, I now have to undo the voice training, or change my kids’ ages to 13+, or remove them from being part of the Home. Like seriously, YT Music can bite me.

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.