Plex picks up Google Assistant integration on Android TV

Ben Schoon | Nov 14 2017 - 7:16 am PT

Google Assistant finally made its way to Android TV in the past few weeks, and as it expands, developers are making updates to add integration. Now, Plex is playing nicely with Assistant.

Plex version 6.9.0’s most notable upgrade is the ability to use Google Assistant on Android TV to search for content and start playing it, all without opening the app. It’s a pretty simple integration, but we’re glad its here. Of course, you’ll need to use a compatible TV in order to take advantage of it, and that’s currently limited to the Nvidia Shield and Sony’s collection.

Along with that, this latest update includes quite a lot of other features as noted on Plex’s forums. There’s a new overlay which can display hardware transcoding status, quality selection during Live TV playback, and a whole lot of bug fixes. The update is rolling out on Google Play now, and the full changelog is as follows.

WHATS NEW:

Display hardware transcoding status in video player info overlay.

Local playback: text based ASS/SSA subtitle support.

Local playback: support for background scanning and thumbnail generation.

Support quality selection during Live TV playback.

[Mobile] Improve photo timeline view interaction.

[Mobile] News: add personalization screen.

[Mobile] Add links to Privacy and Privacy Terms of Service in Advanced Settings screen.

[TV] Support Google Assistant integration.

FIXES:

Local playback: indefinite spinner could appear when trying to playback from a file explorer.

Sync: audio qualities includes an invalid option.

Auto: ensure search doesn’t crash when no music is available.

Local playback: crash occurred opening files with 250mbps+ bitrates.

[Fire TV] Improve home screen recommendations.

[Fire TV] Improve performance on video player for Fire TV sticks.

[Mobile] Camera Upload: very big files could not be uploaded.

[Mobile] Theme music could play in the background after turning the screen off.

[Mobile] Application would close when user selection dialog was closed.

[Mobile] Camera upload: upload process could get stuck when upload fails.

[Mobile] Remove Forgot Password link from the sign up page.

[Mobile] Sync: photos could not be synced from timeline view.

[Mobile] Camera Roll: would only show up to 200 photo or video items.

[Mobile] Improve alignment in filtering options whilst browsing.

[Mobile] Various sorting options would always show in descending order.

[Mobile] Toggling unwatched would hide type filtering.

[Mobile] Improve account settings screen on API 16.

[Mobile] Show interlaced video resolution flags in preplay screens.

[Mobile] News: crash could occur if quickly clicking items from newscast list.

[Mobile] Sort fields in the filter panel cut off last item when selected.

[Mobile] Camera Upload: loading initial status of the feature could freeze the app.

[Mobile] Hide overflow menu icon on Discover section.

[Mobile] Scrolling the grid view right after refreshing could cause endless loading.

[Mobile] TV theme could play under music from another app.

[Mobile] Home navigation state isn’t preserved when entering other activities.

[Mobile] Photos from home hubs where not playing with PMS v1.9.4.

[TV] News: show empty message if there are no clips for selected channel / category.

[TV] Reload categories when changing preferred news location.

[TV] News: part of the title was hidden when toggling mini player.

[TV] Opening photo album could not load content after first time.

[TV] News: crash could occur when searching focus whilst onboarding hint is shown.

[TV] Chapters would not always show when selecting items from the play queue.

[TV] News: highlight personalize button when personalization hint is showed.

[TV] Improve refresh rate switching.