Google Fuchsia update is rolling out widely to 1st-gen Nest Hubs

Kyle Bradshaw | Aug 17 2021 - 3:02 pm PT

More owners of the first-generation Nest Hub are receiving the update to Google’s Fuchsia operating system as it expands beyond the Preview program.

Back in May, Google formally released Fuchsia, its effort to develop a “not Linux” operating system from scratch, which has been years in the making. The first device to receive the new OS was Google’s 2018 smart display, the Nest Hub — not to be confused with the second generation Nest Hub with sleep tracking released earlier this year — taking it permanently off of the existing Linux based “Cast OS” without negatively affecting the UI or experience.

At the time, the rollout of Fuchsia was limited to a select few devices that were enrolled in the “Preview program” available to all devices via the Google Home app. Over time, the number of Nest Hubs running Fuchsia was expanded, with Google no doubt watching carefully for any issues with the upgrade.

Late last week, Google updated a support page to reflect that the Nest Hub has received a new firmware update for both the Preview program and all other devices. Specifically, the first-gen Nest Hub is now receiving firmware version 1.52.260996.

Google confirmed to us that this update does indeed include the upgrade to Fuchsia. All goes well, this means in a matter of days, all first-gen Nest Hub devices in households around the world should be running Fuchsia. You can use Google’s own instructions to check if your device has been upgraded, but it seems more likely that this upgrade going relatively unnoticed by most people is part of the goal.

So far, our team has not noticed much difference between a Nest Hub running Cast OS and one running Fuchsia, beyond some performance improvements. However, the ability to switch the underlying operating system on a real-world device without major issues is a truly impressive feat. That said, the preview program has served its purpose, catching an issue where a particular colorblindness setting was wrongly enabled by default for some.