Ryan Haines / Android Authority
TL;DR
- The Google TV Streamer ships with the latest version of Android built for TVs: Android 14 for TVs.
- The latest version of Android TV brings some new accessibility features, noteworthy performance improvements, picture-in-picture mode support for Google TV, and more.
- It’s unclear when (or even if) the existing Chromecasts will receive an update to Android 14 for TV.
Earlier this week, Google laid to rest one of its most iconic brands, the Chromecast, and in its place launched the first of what might be a series of Google TV streaming boxes: the Google TV Streamer. The Google TV Streamer is a sleek, pill-shaped set-top box that’s double the price of the Chromecast it’s replacing, but in exchange, it has a beefier processor, smart home features, Google AI integration, and the latest Google TV features. Although Google didn’t specify what version of Google TV its TV Streamer is running, Android Authority has seen evidence that, unsurprisingly, it runs the latest version, which is based on Android 14 for TV.
Android 14 for TV, also called Android TV 14 by many, is a special version of Android 14 that’s optimized for TVs. It was officially announced at Google I/O earlier this year, where it was revealed that the update brings improvements to power efficiency, accessibility, performance, multitasking, remote control, and networking. Although the new OS was unveiled at I/O, there weren’t any devices that could run the new version, not even as a beta. Instead, Google only provided developers with an image they could run through the emulator in Android Studio. Soon, though, developers will be able to test their apps on real hardware thanks to the Google TV Streamer, which appears to run Android 14 for TV out of the box.
Ryan Haines / Android Authority
We know this because we obtained a copy of the firmware from the Google TV Streamer, code-named “kirkwood,” that unmistakably is based on Android 14. While we can’t share the firmware dump, we did use it to reveal the chipset in the Google TV Streamer. For the developers out there, we can also reveal that the Google TV Streamer still runs a 32-bit version of Android despite the fact that it ships with 4GB of RAM.
Although the architecture won’t matter to most users, the fact that the Google TV Streamer runs the latest version of Android TV does matter. In fact, as I just mentioned, the latest version brings numerous improvements across the board. To summarize:
- To reduce standby power consumption, Android 14 for TV introduces two new energy modes, Low Energy Mode and Optimized Energy Mode, that disable certain features when the TV isn’t in use.
- To improve accessibility, Android 14 for TV adds color correction modes, enhanced text options, and better navigation options.
- To improve performance, Google has improved the boot latency, reduced the cold start-up time of the launcher, optimized the vertical and horizontal scrolling performance of the home screen, sped up data loading, and reduced storage use by 20%.
- To improve multitasking, picture-in-picture mode is finally coming to Google TV, though there’s a catch: apps that playback media content can’t use it.
- To improve remote control, Google TV is finally adding a native Find My Remote feature. This feature is activated by pressing a button on the back of the Google TV Streamer.
- To improve networking, Android 14 for TV now supports Android’s Thread network stack. This lets supported devices with a Thread radio, such as the new Google TV Streamer, act as a Thread border router.
Apart from these changes, Android 14 for TV also inherits many of the underlying platform changes in the base version of Android 14. One of these is a new API that lets apps embed a custom activity in the Device Controls interface, which is how the new “Google Home panel” was born on phones running Android 14. The Google TV Streamer is also getting access to the Google Home panel, and it’s likely due to this new API that that’s possible. This might also explain why the Google Home panel isn’t immediately coming to existing Chromecast devices, which currently run Android 12 for TV.
Overall, Android 14 for TV is a big update for the TV platform. Usually, platform updates aren’t that significant for Android TV since most of the features reside in the launcher, but there are only so many changes that can come about from updating the launcher. Given these improvements, I hope the Google TV Streamer won’t be the only device running Android 14 for TV for long.
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