For the longest time, we’ve been waiting for Google to bring its Assistant to devices with a screen. After all, voice assistants are great — until you need some visual information to go with their answers. To address this, Amazon launched the Echo Show and Spot last year and now it’s Google’s turn. But it’s not launching a Google Home with a screen. Instead, the company today announced it is working with JBL, Lenovo, LG and Sony to launch new smart displays later this year.
Gummi Hafsteinsson, the product management director for Google Assistant, told me these touch-enabled devices, which Google likes to call “smart displays,” will support all of the standard Google services you would expect to find on what is essentially a Google Home with a screen. Think YouTube, Google Photos, Duo for video calling and more. In addition, though, Google will open the platform to developers, who will be able to write their own actions[1] (which is what Google now calls any… well… action you perform with the Assistant).
The smart displays also will feature all of the usual Google notifications, similar to the old Google Now screen on Android. This means you’ll see upcoming appointments, reminders, a graphical view of what traffic on your route to work looks like, etc. And while it’s not in use, the display can show you photos from Google Photos, just like your Chromecast.
Given that these are Google-enabled displays, you’ll even be able to cast videos directly to them, though, given their size, that’s probably only interesting if you plan on watching a lot of YouTube videos in your kitchen.
“One thing we’ve noticed is that as people have conversations with the Assistant, there are times where you...