Google Nest Hub Max
In October of 2020, one Nest Hub Max user managed to get an early look at “Blue Steel.” This capability lets you just gaze at your compatible Smart Display to trigger Google Assistant, and a launch under the name “Look and Talk” might be coming soon.
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The Nest Hub Max may soon be switched to Fuchsia — Google’s homegrown operating system — as internal testing ramps up.
Update: The Nest Hub Max’s upgrade to Fuchsia is becoming increasingly likely as new evidence comes to light.
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In October 2020, a big Smart Display redesign that brought more interactivity, as well as a dark theme, widely rolled out. Google is now introducing an “app” – though it’s more akin to shortcuts – launcher on the Nest Hub Max.
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Back in June, the built-in browser found on Assistant Smart Display became more feature-rich. Another update to the Nest Hub browser will read articles aloud to you (TTS), just like on Android, while it’s now easier to open websites.
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Smart Displays are very useful for checking the weather at a glance and Google is now showing air quality index (AQI) on the Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max directly in the Photo Frame/”Ambient screen.”
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Google’s Assistant Smart Displays have always had a built-in web browser that you could rather easily access. That rudimentary Nest Hub browser now has a keyboard and a handful of other features to advance the experience.
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Back in October, Google rolled out a big revamp for Assistant Smart Displays that organized key functions in dedicated tabs and added a dark theme. While an improvement over the previous design in most ways, the old Nest Hub UI had one advantage in regards to quickly accessing Home control.
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Following yesterday’s premature appearance, Google has released three new clock faces for the Nest Hub and Hub Max. These additions join the existing eight Fullscreen clock background for those who don’t want to set a photo album.
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The Google Nest Hub and Hub Max are picking up a handful of new features with Cast firmware version 1.52. This release has been in the Preview Program for the last few weeks, and is now widely rolling out to all other users.
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The Nest x Yale Lock makes it pretty easy to secure your door using Assistant or your phone, but some users encountered an issue recently. In an email going out to some users this week, Google admits that a recent Nest Hub Max update causes some Nest x Yale Locks to disconnect.
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Following this morning’s Zoom announcement, the Google Meet experience on Nest Hub Max is getting a revamp. A handful of usability tweaks provide more controls to the group video calling experience introduced in June.
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After being announced in August, Zoom video conferencing is now making its way to the Nest Hub Max. This is just a preview with some technical and geographic caveats for the initial release.
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The Google Home app in recent months has seen a flurry of new features from a dark theme to full Wifi controls and Home/Away Routines just last week. Google is now testing a very welcome redesign of Nest Hub, Home, and other device settings.
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On Monday, Google announced and started rolling out a major visual overhaul of the Smart Display UI. That redesign leaked out early, and the same source is back with a new capability. The Nest Hub Max is testing a ‘Blue Steel’ feature that obviates the need for saying the “Hey Google” hotword.
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As previewed last month, Google is redesigning the interface of Smart Displays. This includes a dark theme, support for personal and work accounts, productivity actions, and much more.
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Over the past four years, Google has expanded its smart speaker lineup quite a bit. This week, the new Nest Audio is hitting doorsteps, but where does it fall in the lineup? Here’s how Nest Audio compares to Home Max, Nest Mini, Google Home, and everything else.
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Last month a video of unreleased software for Google’s Nest Hub Max hit the web to show off a completely revamped interface. Now, more videos give us a better look at the new Nest Hub Max UI with its included dark theme and sticky notes.
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Google’s Nest Hub smart displays are useful for a lot of things, but they certainly push voice interaction over all else despite touchscreens being a core part of the device. Now, in a new video, we can see a complete redesign to the Nest Hub Max’s UI, complete with control panels and more.
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Nest Hub and Smart Display interface updates occur subtly in the background. Recent ones introduced a light theme and tweaked settings. Google is now revamping alarms on Nest Hubs with more on-device controls and a “Sunrise” feature.
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In addition to introducing advance networking settings for Google/Nest Wifi routers, Google Home 2.26 lets you add the Nest Hub Max to Android 11’s Device Controls housed in the power menu.
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Google’s Nest Hub Max is an excellent smart display and speaker, but it also has a full security camera built into it. However, the design of the Nest Hub Max makes that camera somewhat useless at times, but I managed to fix that with this handy stand.
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Finally, after a couple of years, we have some Nest Hub and Smart Display games that take advantage of both your Google Assistant and the color displays.
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The interface for Nest Hubs and other Assistant Smart Displays have remained mostly unchanged since launching in 2018. Google is now rolling out a tweak to the Nest Hub Max where system elements switch from a dark theme to a light one.
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One immensely popular streaming service has long been absent from Assistant Smart Displays. In a real “finally,” Google today announced that Netflix is now available on the Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max.
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