Finally! Google is working on a replacement for Nest Hub

For some time, smart home enthusiasts have been wondering about the fate of Google’s smart displays. Today, an interesting discovery rekindles consumers’ hopes.

Analyzing the depths of the source code of the Google Home iOS app, the well-known researcher @aaronp613 and collaborator of the portal MacRumors, identified unequivocal references to an unreleased device.

The commercial name appearing in these strings of code is “Google Home Display“. Although the extracted information is currently limited to this simple designation, the implications of such a discovery are particularly significant for the future of the home ecosystem of the California-based company.

Google is preparing a new “Home Display”, farewell to the Nest brand?

The choice to adopt the label Google Home Display suggests a significant shift in the company’s direction. It seems that the search giant is progressively setting aside the historic Nest brand, once identifying all home-related products, to return to valuing the brand “Google Home”.

This transition is also confirmed by other recent rumors concerning the imminent smart speaker of the brand, which would have abandoned the Nest label to embrace the identity of Google Home Speaker. Consequently, the new connected screen is envisioned as the direct successor to the Nest Hub line, marking a return to the origins regarding official nomenclature.

Market absence and the shadow of the Pixel Tablet

We have to go back to 2021 to find the last official launch in this specific category, namely the Nest Hub second generation. Since then, the company has kept tight-lipped about its home hardware plans.

This long pause has generated a great deal of uncertainty among buyers, leading many to speculate that the Pixel Tablet, capable of acting as a smart-home screen once mounted to its magnetic charging base, had quietly taken the place of dedicated devices.

Although it never officially declared the end of the Nest Hub line, the silence had convinced a good portion of users that the project had been shelved definitively.

Assurances from the top and Gemini integration

To partly dispel the doubts, toward the end of last year, Anish Kattukaran, Chief Product Officer of the Google Home division, stepped in. The executive explicitly confirmed the leadership’s commitment to developing devices with displays.

Although not directly announcing an upcoming hardware, Kattukaran had promised that there would be interesting news in the near term, tying his statements to the ever-deepening integration of Gemini’s artificial intelligence within the home system.

The appearance of the “Google Home Display” thus appears as the natural evolution to provide physical support for the new and advanced voice and visual interaction capabilities offered by Gemini.

Naturally, it is prudent to exercise some caution. The presence of a name within the code of an application does not always guarantee the commercialization of a finished product in a short timeframe.

Even if the prototype is in an advanced development phase, its debut on shelves could still require many months of testing. However, after a multi-year wait with no new Nest Hub or updates to the Pixel Tablet family, the discovery of these traces represents an extremely positive signal.