Slashdot Mirror
Google Home Hub Is Nothing Like Other Google Smart Displays (arstechnica.com)
On Tuesday, Google announced the Google Home Hub, a 7-inch display that gives you visual information, making it easier to control smart home appliances and view photos and the weather. The unusual thing about it is that it doesn't run the smart display software that it introduced for third-party OEMs. Ars Technica explains: First, let's talk about what the third-party smart displays run. When Google created its smart display software, it also came up with a turnkey solution for OEMs. So far, we've seen Lenovo, LG, and Samsung's JBL all produce devices on the same basic platform. Just like with smartphones, these devices are all an extension of the Android/Qualcomm partnership -- they run Android Things on Qualcomm's SD624 Home Hub Platform. Android Things is Google's stripped-down version of Android that is purpose-built for IoT products, and the third-party smart displays are the first commercial devices to run the OS.
Unlike regular phone Android, Android Things is not customizable by third-parties. All Android Things devices use an OS image direct from Google, and Google centrally distributes updates to all Android Things devices for three years. Android Things doesn't really have an interface. It's designed to get a device up and running and show a single app, which on the smart displays is the Google Smart Display app. Qualcomm's "Home Hub" platform was purposely built to run Android Things and this Google Assistant software -- the SD624 is for smart displays, while the less powerful SDA212 is for speakers. When it came time to build the Google Home Hub, Google didn't use any of this. After talking to Google's VP of product management, Diya Jolly, Ars Technica's Ron Amadeo discovered that the Home Hub is actually built on Google's Cast platform and uses an Amlogic chip instead of Qualcomm's SD624 Home Hub Platform.
When asked why Google was using a totally different platform from the third parties, Jolly told Amadeo, "There's no particular reason. We just felt we could bring the experience to bear with Cast, and the experiences are the same. We would have easily given the third-parties Cast if they wanted it, but I think most developers are comfortable using Android Things." Amadeo seems to think it has to do with the low price, as it undercuts the cheapest third-party Google smart display (Lenovo's 8-inch model) by fifty bucks.
Unlike regular phone Android, Android Things is not customizable by third-parties. All Android Things devices use an OS image direct from Google, and Google centrally distributes updates to all Android Things devices for three years. Android Things doesn't really have an interface. It's designed to get a device up and running and show a single app, which on the smart displays is the Google Smart Display app. Qualcomm's "Home Hub" platform was purposely built to run Android Things and this Google Assistant software -- the SD624 is for smart displays, while the less powerful SDA212 is for speakers. When it came time to build the Google Home Hub, Google didn't use any of this. After talking to Google's VP of product management, Diya Jolly, Ars Technica's Ron Amadeo discovered that the Home Hub is actually built on Google's Cast platform and uses an Amlogic chip instead of Qualcomm's SD624 Home Hub Platform.
When asked why Google was using a totally different platform from the third parties, Jolly told Amadeo, "There's no particular reason. We just felt we could bring the experience to bear with Cast, and the experiences are the same. We would have easily given the third-parties Cast if they wanted it, but I think most developers are comfortable using Android Things." Amadeo seems to think it has to do with the low price, as it undercuts the cheapest third-party Google smart display (Lenovo's 8-inch model) by fifty bucks.
The next thing you will tell me is that Microsoft doesn't run Windows on their servers.
For every Google leak/poor practise posting here on slashdot, we get 3 postings advertising their products - many times duplicate posts. How much money does Google/Alphabet pays slashdot in advertisement fees? This has become out of hand and have been getting worse by the day. These posts try to defend their practises.
If it's not Google-slashvertisements, it's Microsoft slashvertisements.
Come on!
What I find really annoying about the Home Hub is the lack of a camera. It's a device that begs to be sued for video calls but can't be.
They say they did this for privacy reasons, but it's nothing a flip or slide cover wouldn't have solved equally well.
So many of Google's design decisions just leave you thinking, "ugh... why?!?" these days.
1) Join any Google alliance or back any Google product.
2) Google Happens.
3) You are fucked.
If you are wondering where the "..." step was there is none because there is never any doubt relying on Google will screw you over.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Like what? What does a home hub need to do? Video, chat, email.... without long term support this is just wasting money.
why not just buy a cheap android 7 or 8 inch knock-off tablet for $50?
If you want a google powered refrigerator, why not buy a 10 inch android tablet and velcro it to a dumb fridge?
And thus continues the descent of Google into technical mediocrity.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
In other words, Google will ship an always-online device that has a microphone, over which the user has no control, in exchange for $150.
Along with Echo, HomePod and other surveillance devices, I just can't wrap my head around the idea that some people want to be enslaved so bad they're ready to shell out money for it.
The rule in my home is that I don't allow smart devices that
- Use wifi to communicate
- Connect to the same network as my laptop
- Connect to the 'cloud' (especially if this is the only way)
It's just too big of a security and privacy risk.
In fact, I'm currently working on a smart home system that is completely air-gapped. All the 'smart' devices form a separate network which is not connected to the internet. Wifi is used, but only to set it up and to connect a dedicated tablet to the controller in order to change settings or look at datavisualisations. The rest of the connections between devices use other standards.
Outside control is done via SMS, where only pre-defined phonenumbers can send commands (and the same modem provides the time).
>A senior executive who works for Google's parent company and a former US secretary of energy have dropped out of a Saudi Arabia tech and business advisory board following international outcry over the disappearance and alleged murder of a dissident Saudi journalist.
Good thing there was an international outcry or Google's senior execs would still be hard at work building Saudi Arabia's tech!
You can always do video calls with your phone. This is not a phone. The privacy angle is important, Zuck tapes over his camera because he knows any software can access it at the discretion of CEO sociopaths like himself:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/22/mark-zuckerberg-tape-webcam-microphone-facebook
A slide cover is all well and fine, but this is designed to be on a shelf, so its not likely to have a camera pointing in the correct place, and since its attached to a big speaker, it's not something you'll move around like you would a phone.
If anything, I'd like to turn it off, and know it is off, when I'm not using it. Microphones are a big problem when you don't want them, and yet taping over them does nothing.
> making it easier to control smart home appliances and view photos and the weather.
Actually it is easier to check weather by simply looking through one of the home windows.
why not just buy a cheap android 7 or 8 inch knock-off tablet for $50?
These tend to have old under-powered chipset from shitty companie like MediaTek.
Not only they are difficult to unlock and install LineageOS on them, but in today's era of "you must download a multi-megabyte katamari of innumerable javascript framework libraries just to be able to display a single webpage", their weak CPU isn't even good at browsing the web.
If you want a google powered refrigerator, why not buy a 10 inch android tablet and velcro it to a dumb fridge?
It's a good idea, but while you'd be avoiding a huge chunk of the privacy-molestation, you'd be still missing on the sensors that make the whole idea of a "smartfridge" useful (you know, the whole "I'm detecting that the product XyZ you bought N days ago is approaching its 'best-fore' date" , and other "You're running low on milk, would you like me to ask Alexa / Ok,Google / Cortana to order some ?").
So the correct bill of material would be a cheap-ish 10" android tablet, velcro and ~50$ worth of arduinos and sensors from Adafruit, Sparkfun and friends.
(Well, probably a bit more if you need an array of good quality cameras in regions where product code are still purely 100% barcodes (like in the EU) and not NFC-enabled (I've read it's coming in the US), but you got the idea )
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
"Unlike regular phone Android, Android Things is not customizable by third-parties. All Android Things devices use an OS image direct from Google, ..."
wow, sounds good, they really learned a lot from how regular Android updates haven't really worked.
"... and Google centrally distributes updates to all Android Things devices for three years."
oops, nope, still rubbish, 3 years? that's a joke.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Gtalk/hangouts/messenger anyone?
So, did they take out the microphone? Didn't think so. Of course it's just like other "smart displays". It's just that people are so sick to death of being spied on and used for research and ad revenue the only play for trust they had left was to drop the camera. Didn't you see Facebook make a similar play by promising not to spy on video calls. Yeah, this evil global megacorp "promised", hehe. *belly laugh* Gets me every time. Let's just put it this way, if you are dumb enough to buy a "smart" anything, you deserve whatever you get: spying, leaking, dehumanizing devices that link you to the evilsphere.