by Google is working to upgrade its Nest Audio smart speaker to run on its proprietary Fuchsia operating system.
In recent years, Google has continuously worked to transition its Nest Hub smart displays from “Cast OS” to its proprietary Fuchsia operating system. The original Nest Hub was the first to make the leap in 2021, and the Nest Hub Max made a similar move earlier this year. Most likely, the Nest Hub 2nd Gen should get its fuchsia update soon too.
Back in October, we exclusively reported that Google’s next step for Fuchsia is smart speakers, including signs of several new Nest speakers in development. Back then, we found hints that in addition to supporting the latest Nest hardware, Google would also be upgrading some existing speakers to Fuchsia.
Now this week we can confirm that Google’s Fuchsia team is working on Nest Audio speaker support. Internally, Google refers to Nest Audio as “Prince”, following a long tradition of naming Google Home/Nest speakers after famous musicians. In a recent Fuchsia code change, a Googler mentions testing the change “on Prince.”
Nest Audio is the current pinnacle of smart speakers from Google, offering rich, inviting sound and the series’ signature fabric wrap to blend into home decor. We found it to be the perfect “Goldilocks pick,” offering significantly better audio quality than the Nest Mini without demanding the massive price increase of the Google Home Max.
With previous device upgrades to Fuchsia, Google’s goal was to ensure a seamless transition so most people wouldn’t even notice anything had changed. Whether they achieved that goal is debatable, but for the majority of device owners, the upgrade went smoothly.
Considering that Google’s Nest speakers don’t have a screen and the only visual component is the LEDs beneath the fabric, it’s even less likely you’d notice if the Nest audio switched to fuchsia one day. If all goes well, everything should work the same as before, accepting voice commands, casts from apps, and more.
With Google’s renewed work on upgrading smart speakers only active since July, we’ll likely have to wait at least a year before Nest Audio gets a full update to Fuchsia. Nevertheless, it is exciting to see how these projects continue to progress.
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