Can I use Home Assistant with Google Assistant without Nabu Casa?

Yes. The manual Google Actions integration lets you connect Home Assistant to Google Assistant for free, but it requires your Home Assistant instance to be publicly accessible over HTTPS and involves setting up a Google Cloud project. Nabu Casa is simpler and takes less than five minutes to configure.

What Home Assistant devices can Google Assistant control?

Once entities are exposed, Google Assistant can control lights, switches, covers (blinds, garage doors), locks, climate devices, media players, fans, vacuums, scenes, and scripts. You choose exactly which entities to expose in Settings > Voice Assistants > Expose.

Does Home Assistant Google Assistant integration work offline?

No. Google Assistant requires an internet connection to process your voice command, even if the device control itself is handled locally by Home Assistant. If your broadband goes down, voice commands will not work, though Home Assistant automations will continue to run locally.

Home Assistant & Google Assistant UK G

The home assistant google assistant integration lets you say “Hey Google, turn off the living room lights” and have Home Assistant carry out the command locally — with Google handling only the voice recognition. Whether you have a Google Nest Mini on your kitchen worktop or the Google Home app on your phone, this guide walks you through every step of the setup for UK users.

Why Connect Home Assistant to Google Assistant?

Home Assistant already has its own built-in voice pipeline called Assist (covered in our Home Assistant Voice Assistant UK guide), but Google Assistant gives you a familiar wake word, works with every Google Nest speaker you already own, and lets family members control devices without any extra hardware or apps. The integration also means you can mix and match: use Google for casual commands and Assist for privacy-sensitive automations.

What you can control — once you have exposed entities in Home Assistant, Google Assistant can handle lights, switches, covers (blinds and garage doors), locks, climate entities, media players, fans, vacuums, scenes, and scripts. UK users frequently expose their smart heating systems, smart plugs monitoring energy use, and Zigbee bulbs.

Two Ways to Connect

There are two official routes:

Home Assistant Cloud (Nabu Casa) — the easiest method, no port forwarding required, managed entirely through the Home Assistant UI. Nabu Casa is the company behind Home Assistant, so the subscription directly funds open-source development.
Manual Google Actions setup — free but requires an externally accessible Home Assistant instance (HTTPS with a valid certificate), a Google Cloud project, and some configuration file editing.

For most UK households, the Nabu Casa route is the recommended starting point. The manual route suits advanced users who already have a reverse proxy and a domain.

Method 1: Home Assistant Cloud (Nabu Casa)

Nabu Casa Home Assistant Cloud is a subscription service that creates an encrypted tunnel from Google's servers to your local Home Assistant instance. Your voice commands and entity states never pass through Nabu Casa's servers unencrypted — only the authentication handshake uses their infrastructure.

Step 1 — Subscribe to Home Assistant Cloud

Go to Settings → Home Assistant Cloud in your Home Assistant UI. If you do not have a Nabu Casa account, select Get Home Assistant Cloud and follow the sign-up flow. Nabu Casa offers monthly and annual subscriptions; check nabucasa.com for current UK pricing in pounds sterling, as rates may vary.

Step 2 — Enable Google Assistant in Nabu Casa

Once logged in to Home Assistant Cloud, scroll to the Voice Assistants section and toggle Google Assistant to on. You will see a button to open the Google Assistant configuration page.

Step 3 — Expose Entities

Navigate to Settings → Voice Assistants → Expose. Select every entity you want Google to be able to control and toggle it as exposed. Common choices for UK users: all lights, smart plugs, the thermostat, and any scenes you use regularly. You can come back and adjust this list at any time.

Step 4 — Link in the Google Home App

Open the Google Home app on your Android or iOS device.
Tap the + icon (top-left) and choose Set up device.
Select Works with Google and search for Home Assistant Cloud by Nabu Casa.
Sign in with your Nabu Casa credentials when prompted.
Google Home will import all your exposed entities as devices you can control by voice.

After linking, say “Hey Google, sync my devices” to force an immediate refresh if any devices do not appear straight away.

Method 2: Manual Google Actions Setup

If you prefer not to pay a subscription fee and you already have Home Assistant accessible via HTTPS on a public domain, you can configure the integration manually using a Google Cloud project and the Home Assistant google_assistant component.

Prerequisites

Home Assistant accessible from the internet over HTTPS (port 443) with a valid SSL certificate — a Let's Encrypt certificate works fine.
A free Google account and access to the Google Cloud Console.
A free Google Home Developer Console account.

Step 1 — Create a Google Cloud Project

In the Google Cloud Console, create a new project. Under APIs & Services, enable the HomeGraph API. Create a service account key (JSON) and download it — you will need this file.

Step 2 — Create an Action in the Google Home Developer Console

Visit the Google Home Developer Console, create a new project, and under Develop → Actions enter your Home Assistant fulfilment URL:

https://your-ha-domain.com/api/google_assistant

Set the account linking to use OAuth with your Home Assistant instance as the authorisation server.

Step 3 — Configure Home Assistant

Add the following block to your configuration.yaml:

google_assistant:
  project_id: YOUR_CLOUD_PROJECT_ID
  service_account: !include service_account.json
  report_state: true
  exposed_domains:
    - light
    - switch
    - climate
    - scene
  entity_config:
    light.kitchen:
      name: Kitchen Light
      expose: true

Place your downloaded service account JSON file in your Home Assistant config directory as service_account.json. Restart Home Assistant after saving.

Step 4 — Link the Action to Your Google Account

In the Google Home app, go to Set up device → Works with Google and search for the name of your Google Actions project (shown under your account's test projects). Authorise it using your Home Assistant credentials. Google will then discover all configured entities.

Troubleshooting Common Issues

“Hey Google, I couldn't reach Home Assistant”

This usually means Google cannot reach your Home Assistant instance. For Nabu Casa users, check that your cloud connection is active under Settings → Home Assistant Cloud. For manual users, verify your domain resolves correctly and your SSL certificate is valid.

Devices Not Appearing in Google Home

Say “Hey Google, sync my devices” or open Google Home and pull down to refresh. If entities still do not appear, check that they are toggled as exposed in Settings → Voice Assistants → Expose (Nabu Casa) or listed under exposed_domains / entity_config in your YAML (manual setup).

State Reporting Delays

Enable report_state: true in your YAML configuration (manual setup) or ensure the Nabu Casa cloud connection is stable. This pushes state changes to Google proactively, so the Google Home app always reflects the current state of your devices without polling.

Getting the Most from the Integration

Create routines in Google Home — once your Home Assistant entities appear in Google Home, you can build Google Routines that trigger multiple actions at once. For example, a “Good morning” routine can turn up the thermostat, switch on the kitchen lights, and start your coffee maker (via a smart plug), all from a single voice command.

Use rooms — assign your Home Assistant devices to rooms in the Google Home app. This lets you say “Hey Google, turn off the lights” in the kitchen and Google will infer the kitchen room rather than turning off every light in the house.

Energy monitoring — if you use Home Assistant for energy monitoring (tracking kWh consumption against your Ofgem-regulated tariff), smart plugs exposed to Google Assistant also show up in Google Home's energy dashboard. For a deeper look at tracking your consumption, see our guide to Home Assistant Energy Monitoring UK.

Combine with automations — the integration is one-directional (Google sends commands to Home Assistant), but you can build Home Assistant automations that fire when a Google Routine triggers a scene. This gives you the best of both platforms: Google's voice UX on top of Home Assistant's powerful local automation engine.

Privacy Considerations for UK Users

When you use Google Assistant with Home Assistant, the audio from your wake word and command is processed by Google's servers. Home Assistant's fulfilment (the actual device command) runs locally. This means Google knows which devices you're controlling and when, but your sensor data, camera feeds, and automations remain on your local network. If full local processing matters to you, Home Assistant's own Assist pipeline (with a local Whisper speech-to-text model) keeps everything on-device — though you lose the convenience of Google Nest speakers and the Google Home app.

For a complete introduction to running Home Assistant locally, including choosing hardware and initial installation steps, see our Home Assistant UK setup guide.

Home Assistant & Google Assistant UK Guide