new Android TV dongle would join Google’s Nest family

May 16, 2020

Google is preparing a successor to the Chromecast that would work with Android TV, the operating system for smart health connected TVs. But this new dongle would not be called Chromecast. It would take a completely different name. It could even integrate the Nest range, like the smart health connected speakers.

Like Apple, for example, Google offers a wide range of products and services. Smartphones. health home automation products and smart health connected accessories. Software and applications. Several operating systems. An essential search engine. Streaming (musical, audiovisual and video games). Etc. And we are only talking about products for individuals here. But unlike Apple, Google has not been able to give coherence to this abundant catalog.

But the company seems to be working on it, even if it means changing consumer habits. The Nexus have become pixels. Google health home speakers have become products in the Nest catalog. Android Wear has become Wear OS. Etc. And according to a rumor relayed in our columns at the beginning of the week, Android TV could be renamed Google TV, the idea being to refocus the Android brand on its core business: animating smartphones and tablets (like iOS and iPadOS to continue the analogy with Apple).

Chromecast soon in the Nest catalog?

Another product would also be affected by these name changes: the Chromecast dongle. The American site Protocol has published an article based on indiscretions from several sources. These claim that the next generation of the dongle would not be baptized like its predecessors. Several options are still being considered. And one of them would place the product in the Nest catalog, so that the brand continues to include all health home automation products (like Google health home, which it has integrated since 2019).

This new Chromecast (let's keep calling it that way until it's official) has already been the subject ofa complete leak last March. It said the new dongle would be closer to a Fire TV than a Chromecast. Relying on the Android TV operating system and integrating Google Assistant, it would be independent of the smartphone, would be delivered with a remote control and would be able to connect to the Play Store to enrich applications, in particular streaming (Netflix, Disney +, etc.). And it would be natively compatible with Stadia.

Google’s idea with this new product would be to introduce a more serious competitor to Roku, Amazon and Apple in the field of digital decoders. It remains to wait for its formalization, initially planned during the Google I / O 2020 (event canceled since).

Source: Protocol