Google Assistant is great. Whereas cutting-edge folks can use a Google Home to control a Chromecast with voice commands, the rest of us only need an Android phone running Google Assistant to achieve the same thing.

Android Police recently discovered that all you have to do is pull up Google Assistant on your phone and use a voice command to watch TV or play music. For example, say "Play Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds by the Beatles" or "Play MakeUseOf videos."

Three colorful Google Chromecast devices

If you have only one Chromecast-enabled device, that's all you have to say. If you have multiple Chromecast-enabled devices, you can specify where you want the song or video to play. For example, you can say "Play MakeUseOf videos on the living room TV."

Google's list of voice commands that work with Google Home and YouTube include:

  • "Play general videos from TV show / YouTube Channel / artist"
  • "Play specific videos / songs"
  • "Play videos by category"
  • "Turn on subtitles/captions"

You can also use Google Assistant to control playback, with voice commands including "Pause," "Resume," "Skip," and "Stop."

It's unclear if the feature is slowly rolling out to Android users or if it's something that has specific requirements, but you should definitely keep an eye out for it and give it a try.

Have you been able to control your Chromecast using Google Assistant on your phone? What do you think of it? Let us know in the comments.