NVIDIA Shield TV Gets Google Assistant

NVIDIA is rolling out a new firmware update today for its Shield TV set-top box. It has released version 6.0 of the software for this device. One of the new features is Google Assistant. Google’s artificial intelligence-powered virtual assistant can now be accessed on NVIDIA’s set-top box.

With this software update, the NVIDIA Shield TV is now the first Android TV-powered device to offer the full Google Assistant experience. It’s not going to be the only one, though. Google has said that Sony Bravia TVs that ship with Android TV will also receive the full Google Assistant experience in the coming months.

Google Assistant on the NVIDIA Shield will enable users to control media playback hands-free with just voice commands. Additional features include smart home control and the ability to search by voice commands.

Its different from the Google Voice Search feature that was previously available on the set-top box. Google Assistant on the Shield TV has a new visual design and is capable of doing much more than what Voice Search could.

Apart from some features like alarms, timers, and phone calls, Google Assistant on the NVIDIA Shield can do pretty much everything that it can on Google Home. It can also cast audio to the Google Home or other Google Cast speakers and can be used to control media playback.

Google Assistant also has app integrations so it can be used to pull up content from apps like Netflix. Shield TV set-top box owners can bring up Google Assistant via the gaming controller and it’s integrated microphone. The “Hey Google” and “OK Google” work as well.

NVIDIA is rolling out software update version 6.0 for the Shield TV set-top box today. All new and existing owners of this device will receive three months of YouTube Red for free with this update.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Gadgets
Tags: Google Assistant, NVIDIA, shield tv