Fuchsia

Google’s Fuchsia is expanding to ‘additional smart devices and other form factors’

Kyle Bradshaw | Oct 8 2021 - 1:54 pm PT

According to new job listings, Google is looking to expand the Fuchsia operating system from its current home on the Nest Hub to “additional smart devices and other form factors.”

Having been in development for years, Google unleashed their next-generation, from-scratch operating system Fuchsia on the world earlier this year. Fuchsia debuted on the first-generation Nest Hub, with those devices silently switching from Cast Platform to their new OS with little in the way of fanfare or noticeable changes — an impressive achievement all on its own.

In the years leading up to that launch, we’ve uncovered signs of the Fuchsia team developing support for a variety of Google devices, including the Nest Hub Max, 2021’s second-gen Nest Hub, and more. Now, it seems, Google is ready to make its next steps more public, in a series of job listings posted this week, some of which reference a “Fuchsia Devices” team.

The first listing, for “Staff Software Engineer, Fuchsia Devices,” celebrates Fuchsia’s recent milestone and points clearly to Google wanting Fuchsia to run on more “real world products” than just smart displays.

In 2021 we shipped Fuchsia to millions of Google smart displays, now it’s time to expand to additional smart devices and other form factors. Come join us and work on the next-generation Google operating system!
Although the first uses of Fuchsia are smart displays, we are working on expanding to additional form factors and use cases. The Fuchsia Devices team is responsible for making sure we can successfully apply the Fuchsia platform to real world products that make a difference to Google and our users.

So what types of devices should we expect Fuchsia to come to next? Well for one, we may look at the plural phrasing of “first uses of Fuchsia are smart displays,” which suggests the Nest Hub Max and Nest Hub (2nd Gen) may be getting their chance to switch to Fuchsia soon.

Of course, Google has made it abundantly clear here that smart displays are just the beginning. In another listing, for “Engineering Manager, Fuchsia Devices,” the company explains that the Fuchsia Devices team is aiming to “[expand] the reach of Nest/Assistant to new form factors” through “real consumer devices.”

The Fuchsia Devices Smart Products team is part of the larger Fuchsia organization and is responsible for productionizing various types of Fuchsia Devices. Our team delivers real consumer devices to end users and enables you to have a large impact at Google by expanding the reach of Nest/Assistant to new form factors.

This could suggest entirely new device categories for Google’s Nest lineup, powered by Fuchsia. In another section, we get some hints at what those proposed devices would be capable of.

Chromecast, Video Conferencing and Machine Learning are core parts of many of the upcoming smart products.

It’s important to note that “Chromecast” here is probably not referring to the lineup of Chromecast hardware for TVs switching to Fuchsia. Instead, it’s more likely referring to how Google’s speakers and displays can receive a “Cast” from your phone.

This is somewhat clarified in the job listing’s responsibilities section, which lists a handful of features that squarely line up with features of the camera-equipped Nest Hub Max, including “Face Match.” The Nest Hub Max’s store listing also references “Chromecast built-in” as a feature.

Plan, scope, and execute of features like Video Casting, Actions on Google, Video Calling, Face Match, and on device ML.

It also looks like Made by Google devices may soon not be the only ones shipping with Fuchsia. According to another listing, Google is looking for someone on Fuchsia’s “platform graphics and media” team to, among other things, “influence hardware decisions made by partners.”

As a Staff Software Engineer on the Fuchsia team, you’ll drive the technical direction for Graphics and Media and ensure that Fuchsia is bringing maximum value to partners and Fuchsia-based products.
You also will influence hardware decisions made by partners to improve Fuchsia and Google’s ability to deliver efficient software solutions for critical Graphics and Media workloads.

Across these listings, it’s clear that Google has a vision for Fuchsia, and the next step of that vision is more devices. As was the case with the Nest Hub though, we may not even notice immediately that Fuchsia is being run under the hood.

What sorts of electronics and smart devices would you like to see powered by Fuchsia in the coming years? Let us know down in the comments.