There’s some Amlogic and reasoning to this
2023 is shaping up to be another interesting year in Google hardware already and it’s not just because we’ve been covering boatloads of rumors about the Pixel Fold and Pixel Tablet. The amount of investment the company is supposedly tilting into its hardware division is expected to bring about a gradual, but major expansion in the Pixel ecosystem. Still, there’s always an opening to present an upgrade opportunity for repeat customers (which can reinforce purchase decisions for new buyers) and that’s where great smart speakers come into play: specifically, we’re hearing about at least one new Nest speaker in development.
The claim comes from 9to5Google which couches its reporting on the company’s ongoing infusion of its Fuchsia OS into its Nest smart displays and speakers.
Long story short, it seems that code has been more public in the Fuchsia Gerrit about a Google-owned board for a speaker named “Clover.” It supposedly will run on a relatively low-complexity Amlogic A113L chipset — for reference, we saw the A113X go into Lenovo’s Smart Clock Essential (both Alexa and Google Assistant versions). This means we could be tracing to another Nest Mini or, as suspected back in July, a Chromecast Audio revival. Both are reasonable guesses given the long trail times on their last releases, but only the latter has been previously reported on this news cycle.
9to5 also notes that Amlogic is developing a Fuchsia-powered board named “Buckeye” using its own A113X2 chip. We’re most likely seeing the vendor offer up a reference design around its new chip that device manufacturers will be able to integrate to their own future products.
Google hasn’t used Fuchsia to push the envelope (at least not yet) as it’s been replacing the original operating systems of its smart home products and we haven’t exactly been able to squeeze out any new intelligence as to the new tricks the new OS might provide, if any. So, for now, we’ll stay on the lookout for a new Nest smart audio product coming soon-ish and settle on a wait-and-see attitude on Fuchsia.
