Jordan O'BrienEarlier this month, Google announced its first-party smart display dubbed the Google Home Hub. What made this device special is that it offered features that weren’t available to those that came before it, such as the Lenovo Smart Display. Thankfully, Google is committed to its third-party manufacturers, as the Lenovo Smart Display is now receiving an update which brings those Home Hub-exclusive features to Lenovo’s offering.
Despite running on the Android Things operating system, rather than the Chromecast OS that is shipped with the Google Home Hub, the Lenovo Smart Display can now be added to a user’s multi-room music system. That means it’s now possible to stream music from a smartphone to multiple Chromecast-enabled speakers, and that setup can now include the Lenovo Smart Display itself.
While the addition of multi-room audio will be welcomed by many, the Lenovo Smart Display doesn’t exactly have the best sounding speaker. That’s why the roll-out of the Google Photos Live Albums feature could be the bigger new addition. While the Lenovo Smart Display doesn’t feature the Ambient EQ sensor, meaning pictures will look like they’re on a screen as opposed to in a photo frame, the Live Albums feature will still be able to show off the best photos of the user’s family and pets without having to manually curate them.
Arguably the biggest addition to the Google Home Hub was the expanded smart home control, and that’s now coming to the Lenovo Smart Display. Not only will users be able to ask the Google Assistant to show compatible cameras on the screen, but swiping down from the top of the Lenovo Smart Display will now display Home View. This feature gives an at glance view of all the Google Assistant-enabled devices within the home, enabling the user to control them directly from touching the Lenovo Smart Display. It’s not just standard smart home devices that can be controlled by the screen either, as users will be able to control a wide range of TVs, set-top boxes, speakers and smart remotes.
The new features are rolling out to the Lenovo Smart Display over the next few weeks.