Will a new Nest speaker be released in 2023?
Google has already upgraded many Nest Hub series speakers to the Fuchsia operating system, but now it looks like Google Assistant speakers will also get this treatment. Not only that: there is probably a new Nest speaker on the program in 2023.
The Nest Hub family used to use Cast OS, a Linux-based operating system. In the meantime, as much as possible has been transferred to Fuchsia. Looking at the rhythm in which that move to Fuchsia takes place, there is a good chance that a new Nest speaker will come in 2023. That’s because the Hub series is already almost fully equipped with Fuchsia and the question is what the team will do next.
visalia
Even before Fuchsia was officially launched on the original Nest Hub, Google was working on a prototype of the device in 2019. Code name was “Visalia”. At the time, the Synaptics AudioSmart AS370 chip gave away that it would be a speaker like Google Home or Nest. That was different. In 2020, the Visalia project was discontinued and has since been completely removed from Fuchsia’s code. But what turns out? In July of this year, Visalia’s code was restored.
That may indicate that there is bread in Visalia after all. It is thought that it might be associated with another codenamed project, namely Pinecrest. This would be a smart speaker with twice as much RAM as Visalia (1GB, instead of 512MB). Visalia would be the 2019 Nest Mini and Pinecrest the 2020 Nest Audio.
A new prototype device codenamed “Clover” appeared this week. It functions with the Amlogic A113L chip. It is still shrouded in mystery, but it would be a slightly cheaper model. Or is Clover related to Chromecast Audio? Another possibility is that Clover is related to the “Chromecast Audio” successor that was previously discovered. Everything has since been removed.
Nest speaker
There’s reason to think a new Nest speaker is on the way. Not a single Google device runs on the A113L chip, so that must be a new gadget. The specs aren’t great, so could just be a Nest Home Mini-esque gadget. Plus, also in terms of time frame, it is in principle time for a new mini speaker. And perhaps the first speaker from Google that works directly on Fuchsia.
Then 9to5Google found another code name: Buckeye. Since May, Amlogic developers have been working on Fuchsia support for the
A113X2 or “A5” chip. Not much is publicly available about this chip, though it’s likely to be an audio-focused chip with enhanced machine learning features. Something we also know from, yes, Nest speakers (under the name Synaptics AudioSmart).
Announcement
Google has yet to announce it, would it do so in the same week as it announces the Pixel tablet? Just this month, it came on a Tuesday with Nest equipment and on Thursday with new Pixels. We wait and see.
What would you like in a new Nest speaker? Leave it now in the comments.
