Identifying the application, and the permissions it depends on
Two things determine whether Stage 1 completes cleanly: installing the correct listing, and granting the operating-system permissions that device discovery relies on. Both are settled before the speaker is even unpacked.
Identifying the correct marketplace listing
More than one listing in either app marketplace carries a similar name. Only one is published by the device manufacturer; the remainder are third-party products of varying quality and intent. The marketplace itself prints the information that distinguishes them.
| Field | On the manufacturer's listing |
|---|---|
| Publisher | The company that manufactures the speaker. This line is generated by the marketplace from a verified developer account, not written by the developer. |
| Install count | Hundreds of millions. An order of magnitude below that indicates a different product. |
| Review history | Spanning years. A review history concentrated in recent weeks indicates a recently published listing. |
| Title | The plain product name. Titles padded with terms such as "guide", "setup", "manual" or "pro" are optimised for search placement rather than identification. |
Tapping the publisher name opens everything else that publisher has released — the one field a third party cannot fabricate.
Reach the marketplace through the application already installed on your device, using its own search function. A link arriving by email, message or advertisement is controlled by whoever composed it.
Account association
The account signed in to the application during onboarding becomes the account the speaker is registered to. That single choice determines which household the device belongs to, which music and media services are available to it, which purchases and subscriptions apply, and which other devices it can be grouped with.
Changing it later is possible but involves removing the device from one account and running the onboarding sequence again against another. In a household with more than one adult, deciding this before Stage 1 rather than during it avoids a repeat.
Account creation and sign-in take place in exactly two legitimate locations: inside the application itself, or on the manufacturer's own website in a browser displaying the manufacturer's own domain. No third party requires those credentials, and this publication never requests them.
The permissions discovery depends on
Mobile operating systems restrict which applications may enumerate nearby devices, because an application able to see everything on a home network learns a considerable amount about the household. These capabilities are withheld until explicitly granted.
The consequence during setup is worth understanding in advance: when a permission is absent, the platform does not surface that fact in a form the application can relay. The application simply searches, finds nothing, and reports that. The result reads as a hardware fault and generally is not one.
| Platform | Permission | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| iOS / iPadOS | Local Network | Communication with devices on the same wireless segment |
| iOS / iPadOS | Bluetooth | Short-range discovery and the initial handshake |
| Android 12 and later | Nearby devices | Dedicated permission for discovering and connecting over Bluetooth |
| Android 11 and earlier | Location | Bluetooth scanning was gated behind Location on those versions |
| Both | Notifications | Delivery of stage-completion prompts during onboarding |
The Location requirement on older Android is not related to mapping. Nearby wireless beacons can reveal approximate position, so the platform placed scanning behind the same permission. Android 12 separated the two.
Permission screens are reached through the operating system's own settings, under the application's entry. Their exact position varies by manufacturer skin and version; the names of the permissions change far less often than their locations.
Common questions about the application
Each one expands.
Is the application free?
Yes. The companion application costs nothing to download or use, and no subscription is required to onboard or control a speaker.
A listing charging for it, or requesting payment details during onboarding, is not the manufacturer's.
Can onboarding be completed on a desktop computer?
Not the initial connection, which requires a short-range direct radio link a desktop browser cannot establish in the way the process needs.
Where a browser interface exists, its role is account and settings management once a device is already connected.
Why does the application report no devices found?
Most commonly because a discovery permission has not been granted. The platform does not report a missing grant in a form the application can pass on — it searches, finds nothing, and says so.
This is descriptive rather than diagnostic: an application reporting no devices is describing what it can see, not what exists. For a specific device that will not appear, the manufacturer's own support channels can see the device registration and we cannot.
Does an account have to be created before buying a device?
No, but it has to exist before Stage 1 completes, since the speaker is registered to it. Creating it in advance separates the account decision from the setup session.
What if the household already uses a different assistant?
Assistants can coexist on the same network without interfering. What does not transfer between them are routines, room assignments and device groups, each of which is held by the ecosystem that created it.