Google has quietly announced that it is dropping support for third-party smart displays, including those from companies like Lenovo, JBL, and LG. The announcement was made in the form of an ‘important’ notice in a Google support article titled ‘Make Duo calls on your speakers and smart display’.
notice, first informed of Google says in a Google Support article by 9To5 that it will no longer provide software updates for all smart displays supported by Lenovo, JBL, and LG. The article also states that this development may affect the overall quality of video calls made from these speakers.
“Google no longer provides software updates for these third-party smart displays: Lenovo Smart Display (7-inch, 8-inch and 10-inch), JBL Link View and LG Xboom AI ThinQ WK9 Smart Display. This video May affect call and meeting quality,” Google wrote In notice.
What does this mean for existing users?
Google’s announcement doesn’t mean that all of your existing Google Assistant-supported third-party smart displays will be rendered useless starting today. They’ll still work. This means you will still be able to listen to your favorite songs, control all your connected smart home devices, set reminders, broadcast a message and listen to your daily news bulletin without any issues. However, as Google cautions, your video calling experience could be pretty bad.
Also, don’t expect any new features to take off on your smart display anytime soon. It remains uncertain whether Google will provide any security updates for potential bugs and vulnerabilities that these smart displays may have.
It’s worth remembering that Google first announced its entry into the smart display race at CES 2018. The company announced that Google Assistant will soon be available on smart displays by select companies. “Later this year, Assistant is coming to new smart displays from four companies, including JBL, Lenovo, LG and Sony,” the company said. Said those days. Later that year at I/O 2018, the company announced its own Smart Display, which went on sale in July of the same year.
At that time, the idea was to be a part of the growing trend and demand for smart displays created by the Amazon Echo Show. However, over the past few years, the frenzy surrounding connected smart home devices, particularly smart displays, has faded somewhat. Google has also given soft but concrete indications of a change in its priorities. Over the years, the company has stopped short of developing new features for the smart display. Last year, it disabled the web browser on non-Nest Hub smart displays. Apart from this, the company has also changed the platform these devices used to run on (the latest OS is Fuchsia). But this new OS is only available for Nest devices.
Simply put, Google’s priorities have changed. The company is now focused on developing the Bard and other LLM models and integrating them into its existing products and services. Does this mean that Google will discontinue its Nest line of products in the future? Maybe, if he thinks it necessary.
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