The original air freshener-shaped Google Home speaker was announced a full four years ago, and we’ve long heard rumors of a successor with Nest branding in the same vein as other recent products. We’re now getting what appears to be our first proper look at this new speaker, and boy does it have a weird shape.
A new Google device with the identifier GXCA6 just passed through the FCC but with all of the finer details shrouded behind a confidentiality request. This could have been the upcoming Android TV dongle codenamed Sabrina, were if not for further details coming out of Japan. The same product has also been spotted by @androidtv_rumor at an equivalent Japanese regulator, with plenty of information and image publicly available.
In the documentation, it’s referred to as an “interactive media streaming device,” and we can see from the photos that it looks a bit different to its predecessors. It retains the all-over fabric covering and mute switch on the back, but the shape is much taller and slimmer than we might have expected — to the point where it looks as though it might easily topple over (I’m sure Google has thought of this). We can see from the ruler in the images that it’s around 220mm tall, which makes it considerably bigger than the 143mm original.
From the documentation, we know it’ll have the expected WiFi capabilities, as well as Bluetooth for streaming music. Like the Google Nest Mini and others before it, the new Google Nest speaker will have a proprietary 30W DC power supply, so no USB-C. Images of two versions of the power brick and attached cable are also included (above). The base is made of a familiar silicone anti-slip material. The four LED lights are presumably hidden under the fabric as with the other speakers in the range. The Google ‘G’ logo is in its logical position on the back, halfway up, and the mute switch is located towards the top.
