Google says lack of Wi-Fi allowed $129 Pixel Tablet dock to be cheaper

The Pixel Tablet comes bundled with a Charging Speaker Dock that sells for $129 separately. During a Q&A session today, the Pixel Tablet team had more to say about it, with some of the responses raising eyebrows.

• Pixel Tablet Q&A: Why no Face Unlock or Nest Cam, more 3rd-party app updates, upcoming features

Google confirmed that the Pixel Tablet dock has no Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or Thread hardware, as we assumed from the lack of any prior FCC filings. Even if the radios were deactivated at launch, they would have appeared in regulatory filings. A hope among many was that it would be enabled in a future software update.

Unfortunately not. The speaker has no Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connectivity, and needs the tablet to function.

Furthermore, the lack of standalone wireless connectivity allowed Google to make it cheaper. Of course, many believe it is already too expensive if it can’t replicate the functionality of even a $49 Nest Mini, much less the $99.99 Nest Audio.

Not making the speaker dock a Nest Mini allowed us to focus on the best experience for the tablet and dock together, and to also offer the dock at a lower price for customers.

Google says it “went through 60 iterations of magnets to get to a grip that was secure enough to attach firmly, yet still allowed for an easy twist with one or both hands to undock.” From a design perspective, the base of the Nest Hub was reused because it serves as a “clear way to signal that the device could be more ‘hub-like’ when you weren’t using it.”

We saw in our research that tablets often sat unused or neglected, and we thought, “What would it look like if the tablet could turn into a more helpful “hub” when you weren’t using it? We thought the base of a Nest Hub would be a clear way to signal that the device could be more “hub-like” when you weren’t using it.

The company also reaffirmed that the “Charging Speaker Dock’s audio is comparable to Nest Hub (2nd generation)” and that “there’s a little less bass” relative to the Hub Max.

Google gave a good summary of the speaker dock when it said the accessory was designed “to make the tablet more useful, so the features revolve around augmenting the tablet: charging it, extending its audio, and enabling Hub Mode so that anyone can use Assistant.”