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Netflix may be coming to the Nest Hub and other Google Assistant Smart Displays in the very near future. The one feature that these smart displays were missing.
Many have noticed that the Netflix action for Google Assistant now says that it is compatible with smart displays. Likely meaning that the announcement is imminent.
Netflix, nor Google, has announced that it is supported on smart displays yet, but that could be coming as soon as today. And it would be a pretty big deal, especially as Google is pushing smart displays more and more with the new Nest Hub Max that is slated to release later this summer.
When the Lenovo Smart Display launched last summer, the biggest complaint was that there was no Netflix support. Sure, the Lenovo Smart Display was not made for watching TV on it, but the ability to watch YouTube and YouTube TV is there. So it was a bit puzzling that Netflix was not available. And on top of that, you couldn’t Cast Netflix to the smart display, even though it supported Cast.
The decision not to support these smart displays was made by Netflix. This was likely because Netflix didn’t think smart displays would be very popular and/or because it didn’t think many people would want to watch Netflix shows on a 8-inch screen that is likely in your kitchen. But what Netflix didn’t think about, is the fact that people are watching TV shows while they are cooking in the kitchen. And having a 8-inch display there that can set timers and such, while watching Netflix, is actually a pretty big deal.
It isn’t just Google’s smart displays that don’t have Netflix support though. Amazon’s smart displays also do not have support. That is likely to be coming pretty soon too though, if it does indeed launch on Google Assistant very soon. Netflix wants you to watch its content anywhere and everywhere. But it also wants the experience to be there too. It doesn’t want you to watch on a 4-inch 480×800 resolution display (like the Lenovo Smart Clock that just launched) as the experience is going to be terrible.
Smart displays have become pretty popular in the past year, almost more popular than smart speakers. This is because users are able to get visuals when they ask questions. Like the weather for example. Instead of just telling you the temperature and that it might rain, a smart display can show you the temperature, when it might rain and even what to expect for tonight. Without telling you all of this information. On top of that, you can watch plenty of content on these smart displays, which is always a cool feature to have.
Expect an announcement from either Google or Netflix in the next few days, unless this functionality is still in testing. It doesn’t appear to be working just yet, but it does show that it is compatible with smart displays. So it is just a matter of time, at this point.