Gone are the days when a television was only used to watch TV channels. As has happened with mobile phones, they are now used for much more, being able to download all kinds of apps to extend the experience, send content from external devices, and even enjoy series and movies from streaming platforms such as Netflix, HBO Max , Prime Video, Disney + and company.
In addition to all this, it is also possible control smart home devices at the touch of a remote control. While your TV’s smart voice assistant can do it too, this time we’re going to show you how to download the Google Home app so you can view, manage, and control every smart device in your ecosystem.
How to install the Google Home app on TV
Google Home is an application designed for mobile devices and tablets. It is the control center for any smart home device that is compatible with the Google ecosystem. To make it work, all you need is a Google account, and the device you want to link to the network to be able to control it from your mobile, tablet, TV, etc. Nevertheless, there is also a way to download this app for tv.
In order to download Google Home on a television with Android TV or Google TV, we will need to use the sideloadinga technique that basically consists of download the application from an external store and install it on our television. This is because Google Home is not in the Google Play Store on TV, so it will have to be installed ‘by hand’.
For this we can trust web pages like APKPure, and a trusted application to be able to transfer the file to our television. For the latter we can use Send Files to TV or Downloader, among many other apps. The steps to follow are those:
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Download the APK from an external store like APKPure or APKMirror.
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Use an app to transfer the file from your computer or mobile to the TV. Honestly, the easiest way is Send Files to TV. You just have to install this app both on your mobile and on TV, and transfer apk file from mobile while on TV the app is open in ‘Receive’ mode.
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Once transferred, we install Google Home on the TV.
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We follow the steps indicated by the app and we can use it. You may need to grant location permissions for the app to work properly, but we can also skip this step, since in this case the TV will always be connected to the same WiFi network than the devices we want to control.
The application adapts quite well to the TV as far as it goes. You have to remember that this is a mobile app, so we will have to move with the control crosshead remote to navigate through each option. In addition, it has the added difficulty that it does not highlight the active button, so it can make it difficult to know what we are pressing. Although if your command has a pointer, this will not be a problem.
The operation is identical to the mobile app, we have a menu in which we can control each device and see its status. In addition, we have a settings section in which to manage the different sections of our account and use with the devices.
Most likely, the Google Home app does not appear in the list of applications on your television. So we have two options: install a custom launcher to see all the applications that we install externally, or enter the TV settings every time we want to access it and in ‘Applications’ search the list for the Google Home app.