Amazon and Google are in a pitted battle for control of your home and life and yesterday Google announced a number of enhancements to it’s Google Assistant including a couple specifically targeted at making it easier to find the times and channels that shows and movie’s you’re interested in are on. These add to the existing Assistant TV features including setting reminders of the dates and times to watch these shows and the ability to tell it to watch (turn on) your TV for a given show or movie.
Which begs the question, is Google working on a TV “stick” to add to it’s Google Home/Chromecast line-up?
Today Google’s home entertainment line up includes it’s Google Home, Home Mini and Home Max smart speakers, and it’s Chromecast accessory “dongles” which allow you to cast or stream content to speakers and screens by using either an Android or Apple phone or tablet, or via one its Google Home smart speakers. While technically this provides an excellent solution for TV viewing, it is both dependent on having the right device to control it, and well as missing the ease of use, mass consumer appeal, that traditional TV remote’s provide.
Google has, or has had, at least two iterations of TV focused initiatives including it’s unsuccessful Google TV effort, and it’s follow on Android TV effort, which also appears to be having negligible success in competing against the market leaders of, Amazon Fire TV, RokuTV and Apple TV.
While Google’s Chromecast does compete here, it lags in 3rd place in market share at 18%, behind market leaders Roku (37%) and Amazon Fire TV (24%) and only slightly ahead of Apple TV (18%).
As smart home assistants begin to overlap and merge with smart TV streaming sticks, Roku’s market share is the one most up for grabs. While Roku has announced plans to deliver it’s own voice assistant to compete against Amazon, Google, Apple and Microsoft, they do not have near the reach to compete in a crowded smart assistant market that is rapidly turning into a 2-horse race between Amazon and Google. Apple should be able to maintain a minority, but reasonable, 3rd place in the smart assistant market due to it’s committed user base but Microsoft’s Cortana, Samsung’s Bixbi and minority players like Roku will just not be able to attract the ecosystem and breadth of services to be viable competitors.
Arguably Roku’s two greatest strengths has been a) it easily and cheaply brings the smart, streaming media world to millions of existing TVs and b) it offers the appeal of brain-dead simplicity of pointing a remote at a TV and controlling it, both of which are low barriers of entry for those looking to take their market share.
Google is ramping up it’s investments in Google Home and Chromecast, but is still missing a smart TV device with traditional TV style remote control, with built in voice control, to more directly compete against the devices listed above.
From a form factor perspective I wouldn’t expect it to be a physical stick, like the Roku Stick or Fire TV stick, but more in line with the Chromecast Ultra.
And if I had to bet, I’d place money on Google announcing this ChromecastTV device with a Google Assistant voice remote this year.
But then again, I could be wrong.
clarkb... 