So Abner, we have had a product come to the end of its shelf life, no more availability, officially yet no sales of Chromecast through Google Direct Channels. It's the end of an era. It's probably my most used Google product ever. I think it's one of the greatest success stories of Google's hardware division. How are you feeling about it? Because I'm very, very upset.
Yeah, so when the Google TV streamer was announced in August, Google said they're going to stop making the Chromecast. They are done with Chromecast. They are done with the brand. They are done with the form factor. They said they would stop manufacturing, but they would let the stock sell out. And it took a few months, honestly. But now it's gone. The Google Store pulled it earlier this week.
third-party retailers it's all out you might still be able to find one but i don't think anybody's really selling it online anymore so yeah it's it's gone it's it is just gone Yes. It's crazy to think that the Chromecast has been around for so long as well. 13 years, I think. Yeah, I was about to say 13 years. I was trying to do the maths in my head and I just couldn't do it.
But yeah, it's easily my most used product, easily by a country mile. I have one on my office TV. I did have one on my living room TV until the Google TV streamer arrived. Fantastic. I'm a bit disappointed because... In many ways, it is their biggest success. I think, what, they announced it in the Nexus 7? No, maybe before that. I know they announced maybe the second generation.
alongside the Nexus 7. That was a fun time in Google Hardware. But yeah, it's a cheap product, which was truly emblematic of how Google... They're poached to hardware for a long time, make affordable hardware, back it up with software, and it's 13 generations. I guess the writing on the wall is kind of here. since the Chromecast dropped the cast and went to Google TV. So I guess this was a long road towards phasing it out, but still.
I think the important thing to note is they all still work. I think even the second generation Chromecast still works. The only one they ever pulled support for was the original first gen that was shaped like a key. Yeah. Yeah, I still have one in a drawer somewhere, but I think there's still, every so often there'll be an update for the original CAS protocol, right? So I think that some of the older ones still technically get updates very rarely, but obviously we don't.
We don't know specifically when Google is going to stop supporting the Chromecast with Google TV, but I don't think it'll be for quite a while. I'm guessing because it's effectively the same platform. We're still waiting on the Android 14 update, so that's a good sign. So if you do happen to pick one up discounted, I think it's a good product. Yeah, it's like $20 right now. Yeah, $20. I mean...
I used the 4K one from 2020. I wish I'd have picked it up in the snow color. Is it blue? Blue, snow, blue one? Sky, sky, sky. Yeah, I wish I'd have picked it up in that, but at the end of the day, that was only for the remote.
The dongle form factor, I think, is one of the things I'm very wary of Google just ditching completely. Because I feel like my personal opinion is that they've kind of ceded ground to Amazon in that the Fire Stick is... probably going to take i mean it already had a huge sales leap because of their pricing was really aggressive but they can kind of dictate where the smart dongle because i mean it is technically android based right amazon fire tv so there's stills
They can kind of dictate where that goes, the dongle form factor. I'm a little bit concerned about that, but I guess. To talk about the Google TV streamer, it's $99. I absolutely think they'll be making a cheaper one because... They can't just give up. They can't seat that $50 space. It's important. Again, the whole premise of the TV stream is that people want more premium stuff. But at the same time, it's...
You just need to bargain bins. I think the classic scenario is when you're doing Black Friday shopping, they're just bins with cheap stuff near the register. Historically, that has been the Chromecast. That has been Fire TVs. And just not competing there is... I think they need to have something cheaper.
Yeah, my thought process is that it's one of those products, like you just say, where it's a bargain bin, you just pick it up. But at the same time, I mean, I'm not in that position where I have children or anything like that, but I guess people who have multi... Like they might have two or three children and they have TVs in their room and they just want to stream stuff that a TV like it's a really quick and easy way to and cheap as well to get them connected and consistent.
Yeah, everyone's using the same device. There's no confusion between them. And I've used, I do have an Amazon Fire Stick. I wanted to try one a couple of years ago. I picked one up and if I'm being completely honest, it's fine. but you can tell that it is criminally underpowered, even compared to the admittedly underpowered Chromecast. I'm interested to see where Google goes with it. If they do a, like you seem to believe, and I do agree with you.
if they do a smaller, cheaper Google TV streamer, what is the form factor going to look like? Do you think that they'll do... like a smaller, just maybe even more cheap feeling Google TV streamer? Or will they make the dongle? I think the dongle is so synonymous with Google.
Yeah. Just at this point in time, because the Chromecast was initially the market leader, right? They sold 100 million of these things. This is not an unsuccessful product line. And I think people maybe have that misconception that Google cuts products. This is successful. Yeah. I know at least 15 people who have a Chromecast still to this day. So it seems strange to just say, no, we're done with this now. We now have this new in-air quotes premium model.
if you want a streaming device from us, is premium or bust? I don't know. It feels really, really weird. I wonder if this coincides with them doing a... I mean, they're trying to put Google TV on everything, but at the end of the day, they still haven't got Samsung. Vizio is making their own play. Fire TV is obviously a big player. I mean, they can strike as many deals as they want, but they're not going to offer something that can work on every TV.
unless it's a Google TV streamer. How do you feel about that? I'm going to interject there. How do you feel about a TV using the smart TV interface, even if it is Google TV? Personally, I don't trust... It could be Toshiba, Panasonic, Sony. I do not trust them to do the updates for it. That's why I think most people prefer to get a dongle.
because you can just remove it and basic i mean i don't even have my smart tvs connected to the internet yeah i just want it to push the picture i mean does that fall into google i don't know where does it fall into google's remit what do you think I think they... Again, I think Google TV, they're going to try. Like, either they get the OS on every single television or they sign these deals like they did with LG to bring CAS directly. But...
Even then, the point you made, the advice I'd give to people is just to get a dongle, specifically the Google TV power, the one with a remote. That was the move in terms of... not having to deal with this crappy software. But at the same time, Google TV or those other platforms, most people are fine with it. They all learn, they all grudgingly learn how to use their remote.
they're complicated remote and they'll be off but there's such a simplicity to recommend the chromecast if you didn't like your smart tv just or after a few years and your tv got old because they're still not using top-of-the-line processors, honestly. You could just tell them, just buy this dongle. It's faster, it gets more updates, it's a more modern experience, a more consistent experience in your smart TV.
And yeah, I think you raise a good point because consistency is going to be huge if Google is going to continue to push these partner relationships. I do wonder, I do wonder, this is another almost existential kind of question is. Is Google trying to call these partners more so than creating a product of their own that almost, I know I don't want to say cuts through these particular, in air quotes, brands.
Are they trying to curry favor with these brands to have these long-term relationships and get their product into every single TV, which makes sense? I think it's a mulchie. And push Google TV that way. Do you think it's a multi-phase approach? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it also raises some other questions, but it kind of leads us nicely into something else that is ongoing with Google TV. integrating Gemini into it more. It feels more of like a hub style system for...
for the way that we interact with things. And I guess most more people are watching TV. We've seen the reports that YouTube TV consumption is on the up. More people are just streaming directly from these services. And once we start to see Gemini into these services and stuff like that, where does that leave the Chromecast? The Chromecast is just completely almost disappearing. And we've seen the end of some other hardware lines at the Nest Hub.
the Home Hub, the Nest Mini, all those kind of things. I know you have some strong thoughts about this, and I want to hear about what you think about Gemini, smart displays, TVs, Google TV at the heart of that. So... The idea that, I don't know if this is intentional, but like Google, the TV streamer, they wanted to do a powerful device, a powerful, have specs, give it longevity, that more powerful processor. At CES, we saw Google's big update was about Google TV and Gemini and adding Gemini.
It's still going to be called Google Assistant, but it will be based on Gemini LLMs, just like on the speakers. So yeah, Gemini, you can have... Just conversational conversations, natural language queries, that kind of stuff. For general knowledge, if you ask the general knowledge question, Gemini will also bring up a little short text response.
in addition to reading it out loud. And those responses will have YouTube videos that can help answer your questions. Or you can have conversational exchanges about finding movies to watch, that kind of stuff. It does look useful. So that's the... UI there, but it's the other stuff. To me, it's honestly making the Google TV, the smart TVs in general, smart displays. They're adding presents.
detection on these upcoming tvs i think two models have committed to it but basically when you approach the screen it switches from your photo screen saver whatever into a and it's a hub basically the smart display UI with various cards for the weather for your schedule for camera feeds the news that kind of stuff
So it's basic, it takes the best part of the smart display, which is like, well, people most love seeing their photos on it. And photos obviously look better on the biggest screen possible. It's taking that and adding assistive features, like just admittedly seeing what's on your schedule or that kind of stuff. And I think it's a natural fit almost. I... I agree with you to an extent when you said natural fit, because my biggest concern there is that for most homes,
when you're not in the home, for instance, or you come back, the TV is not going to be turned on straight away, right? I'm not going to go in and turn the TV on. Whereas if I have a Nest Hub device or a Nest speaker type deal. I will, that will be in the corner of the room. It will activate when I go into the room, for instance.
And it's not as, how would I describe it? It's not as signposty. It's not a huge billboard in your home. Like a lot of people put their TVs on the wall now. I have multiple TVs on walls. It seems to be the dumb thing. So I can understand that aspect. Do you think there's some, I can kind of see some drawbacks here where that, whereas with a smaller device that has a smaller screen and is less kind of, yes, less in your face that it feels, it feels like.
Leaving those behind is a little bit of an oversight. And again, it kind of ties back into the Chromecast. It's like Google saying, no, we don't want to do this thing because we think this is the way that we need to do things. How do you think that fits into it? Do you think there's any... Any conceptual reason why they don't want these smaller devices anymore? The smart display specifically, it seemed like Google had a plan for the future and that was supposed to be the Pixel Tablet.
So we got the last 2020 or 2021, we got the last Nest Hub, the one with sweep sensing. And two years later, 23. we had to pixel tap it so that seemed like the natural lineage i mean it looks like the dark looks like a nest up so it seemed like that was their path to the future and to And it's a good one. You have a Pixel Tabbit. I have a Pixel Tabbit. You finally got a dock. The Pixel Tabbit makes a good smart display. It gives you some place to always return the Tabbit to.
The speakers on it are louder than your tablet, your phone, your laptop. It's a good idea. But based on the latest rumors, appears that the pixel tablet 2 has been cancelled it's we don't know what the future of the product line is and based on the 23 for the original model which probably should have come much earlier since we got a preview of it at the
made by google i don't know it seems like it's i would have expected a new pixel tablet this year but there's nothing about that um or rather it looks like it's been cancelled I'm not sure if you'll see it next year after that or how long, but to me, it seems like the Pixel Tab is no longer the guaranteed future. And the...
Obviously, they've decided we just want to put it on a bigger screen because I can understand the idea of turning your TV into the home hub because that's where you're going to spend the most time. And I do like some of the smart home controls and some of the integrations with Google Home speaker, Google Home cameras, Nest cameras, sorry. I can't even think of the name of them. There's so many different names we have to contend with.
I mean, does it really? I don't know. Personally, I'm confused by the whole way that they've gone about it because it's almost like they're just saying, we're going to continue to support these products, but these products are not in our major... if that makes sense. It's all really strange. And I think that the Pixel tablet is one of those things that until you have the Pixel tablet, I think...
it's very easy to say that it's a bad product. Yeah, basically just looking at the price alone, it's questionable, and that's on Google. Yeah, I think the price and structure was, well, it was poor. And then once you start to factor in the fact that you can buy it without the dock and then with the dock, I think you kind of have to have the dock to have the complete experience. I don't think as a standalone tablet it's a great value for money. I think you're better off going with something else.
And obviously the fact that it's an LCD limits some of the enjoyment I've had with it. I mean, don't get me wrong. It's a great travel companion. I still use it all the time for that reason, but it works best in the home. And maybe they could have positioned it as such. And it does feel from obviously what we've been seeing with regards to Google TV and the integration with all of the home systems that...
Google has just said, we're going to put it on the big screen and you're going to be happy with it because A, we can iterate and it doesn't matter if this effectively... the other product lines get cut because you're still going to have your TV anyway because Google TV is a big component. Yeah, everybody has a TV. It's reading back. It's, I don't know, people cutting back on movie theaters for TVs. I don't know. It's just...
I think that everybody has a TV. I don't think that's changing. And it makes sense to make the TV smarter. I mean, there are all these smart TVs. They already have app ecosystems. But I think just putting it on there, just putting this hub-like UI on there, it's just a natural evolution. And to what you're saying about people not turning on their TVs. I think we'd probably be surprised by how many people keep their TVs on all day. That's so not great for power efficiency.
I guess they're getting more efficient. I don't know. It's if, I don't know, rather than just cycle to photos, which is popular, but once you pop into your living room, kind of. I'd rather get information rather than seeing photos. Yeah, I guess when we boil it down to the ambient display screen savers that they already have on the Chromecast. And I know I keep banging the drum for the Chromecast. It's one of my favorite products. I think, yeah, it kind of makes sense to have that.
that information, that glanceable information, weather, like calendar, all that kind of stuff. It does make sense because that does sometimes when, for instance, a YouTube video is finished playing and it goes into screensaver mode, I think it probably works best there. Because even if you're not seeing it all day, it's still useful information when you need it. But yeah, I think it's going to be a really interesting time because we're seeing this transition. Let me try out something wild. Okay.
Does Google doing this, just making smart TVs the future, smart displays, does that mean that Google will make a TV, a Pixel TV? Well, I guess they'd be stupid enough to call it Google TV, but... My God, can you imagine? Google Google TV. Yeah, can you imagine us having to differentiate the software versus the model? Okay, so let's start with one thing. TVs, they don't make money.
They're cheap screens. You make the money back on ads, which I guess Google knows a thing or two about. But we've never Apple rumored for years to make one. They've never done that. TVs are just cheap screens. I think that Sony, who makes, one company makes all this, one or two companies makes all the displays. It's not a high profit business. Does a Google TV make sense? Does it make sense? Name-wise, absolutely not. Product-wise, I can see it.
I can see it. But again, I think that goes back to my point I was talking about with is Google, does Google have the confidence to effectively piss off their partners, the Sonys, the Samsungs, or are they going to work more directly with them? I get this impression that Google over the last couple of years has been a bit more...
And I don't want to use the term subservient, but that's the only way I can describe it, to the partners that they have, Samsung, OnePlus, and all of those brands for specific reasons, because obviously... They have the vehicle, aka the core OS, that runs on all these devices. And I do wonder if they're going to follow that same path with TVs.
And streaming devices in general, like the Google TV streamer probably will sell quite well. I'm sure it has. It was difficult to get hold of when it first launched. I do wonder if they have said, okay, with regards to all of these. We'll exit the market at the low end and only target an area of the market where we're not going to undercut our partners. I don't think anybody makes money from that. Again, it's like...
It's like the Walmart on. I know that's popular in the US. I think there's... Somebody actually makes it to the UK too. I think I said something like that, but... I don't think there's that much money to be made on the hardware. So them abandoning it is... I guess it's... At least it's opinionated. At least they did something...
very strongly that they felt they were moving towards where the puck is going. So I guess you give them chops for that. It's a strange... idea to have a google branded tv i mean obviously i'm sure it would be made the panels would be made by lg or samsung yeah yeah and i would very i would very much Welcome a Google-branded TV with an LG panel, OLED. Now you're talking my language. No, and the software, there's nothing squummy about it. There's no...
It could be very clean, but again, I don't think anybody makes money from it. Maybe a vanity project. A vanity project, high-end. I mean, even, again, Apple with all its scale, they couldn't pull it off. And they've been trying. And I don't know. This is maybe far into the future, but I think like a premium, you know, probably end up looking very premium. Good panel.
It sounds to me like you're almost wishing we had something like the Apple Studio display, but the Google equivalent is a TV. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, again, crazy pricey, but... Can you just imagine like putting a tensor level chip on the TV? Like that's probably overkill. But I think for longevity, that would be so good. Because like, again, all these smart TVs, they used...
the cheapest of specs, seemingly. Not a lot of RAM, not a lot of barely any storage. I mean, Google had that problem for ages. And the processor is just whatever. I can see it working. I mean, do I think they'll do it? 100% no, but hey, we can dream, right? We can dream about it. What if they just called it something like, no, I was going to say the Chromecast portal, but that sounds absolutely awful and I regret saying it out loud.
Anyone who finds that even remotely offensive, DM me. I know it was bad. I apologize. I think it would be a cool concept, even if they just did it as a concept. product i would love to see something like that it would be kind of cool it's a shame we don't have stadia anymore they could have had stadia integration and all that kind of stuff but hey the more we talk about products that don't exist anymore the more i get upset uh
You mentioned something that this week, earlier this week, you were talking about specifically speakers with regards to Google. Yes, so this is the next phase. Yeah, what a Gemini-powered Nest speaker looks like. what it potentially entails. Like, go into detail with this, because I'm a little bit, I'm more on the speaker with a display now. I'm a convert for that. Tell me what you foresee something that...
It has no actual visual interaction with it as well. Yeah. So going into this, I asked, what does a next-gen speaker look like? This is not too wishless. I was trying to be a bit more practical about it in terms of what does modern Google want to make that actually makes the money. Honestly, it did not... New speakers in 2025 look so much like the old one, like released in 2020 and around there.
I just don't think there's that much innovation in speakers. I think the era is kind of over for that to what you're saying. People want displays. It just makes sense to have it on display. Visual interaction, you can use it for other stuff. but i don't know the speakers as if i think google should have a smart speaker like one at least one maybe a new nest mini but
The current lineup, it's old, but they still work. They're getting Gemini by nature of how all these things are processed in the cloud. So I would not be surprised if... I don't know, around 23, Google was lining a speaker up as we saw signs of it. But then by 24, it was clear that it was canceled. They ended the future project behind it.
behind the models that we were tracking that looked like speakers. I think, again, this is just pure speculation. But to me, it seemed like they had these prototypes, maybe it advanced. They wanted to put UWB in it, but ultimately it looks like they cancelled it because I don't think it's meaningfully better or it's going to sell volume compared to the models they currently have. I don't think it was a...
it would have been any significantly improved. So in terms of the hardware lineup, we still technically have Nest Audio, Nest Mini. Nest Hub 2nd gen, is that still being sold? Nest Hub 2nd gen, yes, and Nest Hub Max. Nest Hub Max is still available as well. Good quadrant, yeah. I mean, I use a Nest Mini. I have a Nest Hub first-gen, second-gen. I don't have an audio or the Macs. And I use them quite frequently, and there's been no deterioration in the audio quality.
no deterioration in the audio experience. I think I went through a phase where the Google Assistant was really, really poor, specifically the Nest Mini. But I think that's kind of corrected itself recently over the last probably 18 to 24 months. Most of my requests are answered pretty snappily.
If I ask to play a radio station, which is what I use them for most of the time, it's pretty solid and controlling home devices is enough. I don't think it needs to be anything spectacular in terms of what you utilize them for. I'm very interested to see how Gemini...
It rolls out globally. Obviously, I can't test it here in the UK unless I do some VPN magic. But I always think that if we can get a bit more contextualized conversations with these speakers, it's going to be great. But like you say...
Does that need a new form factor or do we just use the existing ones and improve some of the hardware in them? I know that Apple is still continuing with their HomePod lineup and they've made barely any improvements on the new versions. And I think Alexa still exists. quite prominently it's that has the zeitgeist i think it's and the meme almost like the meme economy is overtaken by alexa but yeah that
Do you think we need something that's in between the Nest Mini and the Nest Audio or maybe even to the Nest Hub Max that we had? Well, that is discontinued now. So I don't know. Where do you foresee this potential product if there is one? In the lineup. I think. I mean. An upgraded Nest Mini. I feel like better speakers. Better microphone. Maybe put thread in it.
Again, it's a cheap device. I don't think they stray beyond $50. I think it looks the same. I think a Nest Audio could be more exciting. Like at $99, Apple puts in a temperature sensor. They have thread in it. I don't know, Soli would kind of be interesting. The $129 Nest thermostat has Soli for presence detection.
I think it kind of could be cool if you could make air gestures or whatever. So there are some upgrades, but I don't know, like... do people will people will this be a successful product if they add all this stuff and i don't know um
I don't think it does. I genuinely don't. I think it just keep it as simple as possible because obviously they're still selling. These products are still... They're still on the market. Compared to the Chromecast, the inventory is still strong as far as you can tell.
So there clearly is some level of manufacturing going on for these products because there is enough demand to deem it so. Yeah, I agree with you. There's some nice to have. I think the Tapticast would be really nice. I think that's one of the coolest things as of the...
the Pixel tablet, and I would like to see that spread a little bit more widely with other OEMs. Yeah, absolutely. I wanted to see it spread. Yeah, that's the key. They have to get partner buy-in because right now it's just, what, four... four generations of pro pixel phones that's not enough to is that i like again like thinking like let's say there was a 2023 speaker with uwb i don't think it would have been worth it to
to put uwb for just a few pixel phones it needs to come to other markets it needs to come to other phones before it remotely gets interesting i think yeah i think it's a really really good point and um Yeah, I mean, I'm intrigued to see what happens with both of these effectively one disappearing product lineup, this new line, this almost...
What would it be? They're being dragged into the 2025 with Gemini and then eventually we may potentially see some hardware. I want to see what Google has in store for us. I don't know. what the future holds for for nest speakers but i do think that a lot of people want answers i think a lot of people are very very uh yeah i don't want to say happy there's a lot of people out there who want to see things from nest and they want to see
hardware and it does feel like it's a bit neglected. This week we saw the Alexa Plus thing, which is just put Gen AI LMs into a voice assistant. Again, Google since December-ish. has been testing the Gemini LLM version of Google Assistant for the Nest Mini and for the Nest Audio. So it's been in testing. I have it. Seems fine. Kind of like Gemini Live. It's still US only.
Now that Amazon has made its move, I think, I don't know, I'd say by IO, they really should have it start rolling out. So this new Gemini thing. But yeah, I think it's there. It exists. The future is there. I think rolling it out to existing devices rather than limiting it to new ones, it's a great move. that everybody will benefit from but I don't think we see hardware yet I think this is the fresh out the software first before we see any hardware
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in some ways that feels like Android 16, right? Android 16 is going to come before the new hardware and it's a strange period of time. Maybe.
I mean, let's hope that we get to see something at I.O. because that will be a fantastic place. Potentially, we're not going to see the 9A, the great time to release a new Nest hardware audio product, if I've said that in the... right way nest audio hardware product yeah um thank you for um for spending some time with me today i've really enjoyed this chat i think we've we've covered some of the things that i love and you love in terms of google's hardware lineup and yeah i have to say
Chromecast, special place in my heart, one of those products that I hope is like a phoenix that rises from the ashes, especially with regards to updates, but we'll get a new product later down the line. But yes. Thank you, everyone, for listening. Hopefully you've enjoyed this. If you have some thoughts about your own Chromecast experiences over the years, by all means...
get in contact. I love to hear how people use Chromecast. I know a lot of people take them traveling. I think it's a really good, like almost a hotel hack. Get a Chromecast in your bag, $20, 25 pounds, whatever it is. You have a little entertainment disc to take with you everywhere and it doesn't take up much space. Can't say the same for the Nest Mini, but hey.
You can run it on a battery if you really wanted to. I don't think you should. Well, thank you very much. This has been episode 43 of Pixelated. Yeah, it's been a good time and I'll speak to you soon. Bye.