Google Pixel 4 Event Recap for Innovation-Minded Marketers
What Google announced and what marketers should know
On Tuesday, Google hosted its annual “Made by Google” hardware event in New York City to introduce to the world a slew of new products, including a new Pixel phone, a new lineup of Google Nest (née Google Home) speakers, and a pair of wireless earbuds. For every little thing that Google announced, Engadget has a nicely detailed summary. Here, we’ll focus on the four highlights that truly matter for brands — things that every innovation-minded marketer needs to know.
Wireless Headphones? Call Them “Hearables”
There is no denying that wireless headphones are having a moment this fall. Granted, Apple’s AirPods have been a cultural phenomenon for a while now, and independent headphone brands like Jabra and Jaybird have put out products that try to address the remaining markets. Over the past couple of months, however, things really started heating up, with both Amazon and Microsoft announcing their takes on truly wireless headphones. Microsoft’s upcoming Surface Buds will feature always-listening microphones that work with any virtual assistant and offer integration with Microsoft’s Office software for some nice productivity features such as dictation and real-time translation. Beyond the expected Alexa integration, Amazon’s Echo Buds also promise active noise reduction, which is something that Apple is reportedly adding to the next-gen AirPods. In fact, Apple announced new Beats on-ear noise-canceling headphones with hands-free “hey Siri” command on Tuesday as well.
Responding to the market, Google announced an update to its Pixel Buds. Unlike the original iteration that launched last year, which still had a cord that links the two earbuds together, this new version is truly wireless. Like its major competitors, Pixel Buds allow for hands-free access to Google Assistant with the “Hey Google” wake word, as well as an Adaptive Sound feature that will automatically boost volume as users move into noisy environments. They also support long-range connectivity, and Google claims that they can remain connected to your phone through three rooms, or up to a football field’s length. Set to be released in Spring 2020, they will retail for about $179, which puts them roughly in the same range as the AirPods, cheaper than the $249 Surface Buds but higher than the $130 Echo Buds, with the latter shaping up to be Pixel Buds’ biggest competitor for Android users. Interestingly, the new Pixel 4 phones won’t include any headphones, or even a 3.5mm adapter, in the box, thus practically nudging users to buy a pair of Pixel Buds.
The arrival of all these wireless headphones products in quick succession highlights not only Apple’s success is cultivating and growing a new wearable product category, which offers a glimpse into a post-mobile world, but also a keen interest from the major tech companies to push voice assistants into more devices and create new touchpoints for voice-enabled services. The increased access to voice assistants on the go would likely lead to more usage outside the home, and thus capture more valuable data on user behaviors for those companies to improve their respective voice assistant. Moreover, bringing voice assistants outside of the home and unbundling them from the smartphone will also bring them into new contexts to unlock new use cases that brands can leverage to activate brand value. Driven by AirPods and the newcomers, the global market for wireless hearables is estimated to reach a volume of 129 million units by 2020, up from 46 million units in 2018, according to a recent study from Counterpoint Research. As adoption of these wireless headphones grew, so does the reach of voice interfaces, thus offering brands more opportunities to surface their voice-based experiences down the road.
Google Assistant Gets A Noticeable Upgrade
Besides expanding the reach of its voice assistant, Google also announced the second-generation version of its Google Assistant software, which promises new capabilities, a design overhaul, and a noticeable boost to speed, which allows the new Assistant to launch and return answers much faster than before (Google claims it will be up to 10 times faster). First previewed at Google’s developer event back in May, this updated Google Assistant will be coming first to Pixel phones before rolling out to other supporting devices.
In addition, Google also refreshed its smart speaker lineup with more or less the same product at roughly the same price points, albeit they are now under the “Google Nest” branding following Google’s merge with Nest (a company it acquired back in 2014 and ran as a separate business under parent company Alphabet) and its smart home division. A notable new addition came in the form of a new mesh WiFi router system called the Nest WiFi. There are two versions of Nest WiFi: one that is a router that plugs into your modem, and the other (called a “point”) that can double as a smart speaker.
The latter points to an emerging product diversification in the smart home space. Not every household needs a smart speaker — say if you are an audiophile who really cares about audio quality and has already invested in high-end speaker equipment, for example — but nearly all modern households will need a wireless router. And if that router happens to have the same functionality of a smart speaker (i.e. accessing voice assistants hands-free), then that’s added value on top of a utility gadget. Amazon is roughly pursuing a similar strategy with their new Echo Mini, which comes with an LED clock face and makes it a perfect nightstand companion, not to mention the new Alexa-enabled smart oven. Embedding voice assistant support into more utility-oriented household appliances and gadgets provide tech companies a new way to increase the voice touchpoints at home and bring late adopters that are on the fence about smart speakers into their respective ecosystems.
Cloud-Based Gaming is Coming
Back in March, Google previewed its next-gen cloud-based gaming platform Stadia, which will allow subscribers to play high-quality video games across different devices (mobile, desktop, Chromecast, etc.) via streaming in a consistent and reliable manner. Now we finally have a release date as Google announced Stadia will launch on November 19 for those who spent $130 on the Founder’s Edition package that Google started pre-selling since June, to be followed by an unspecified platform rollout to all users. Additionally, it will also be playable on TV screens via Chromecast. During the keynote, Google’s hardware chief Rick Osterloh positioned Stadia as part of Google’s ambient computing vision, which promises “to deliver the best games ever made to just about any screen in your life.”
Stadia’s impending launch heralds a new era of casual gaming, as nearly all the major players in the gaming space, such as Microsoft, Sony, Amazon, Nvidia, and Valve, all have projects in varying stages of development to push casual gamers to a cloud-based subscription model. Microsoft and Sony, two of the biggest stake-owners in the game console market, struck a partnership earlier this year to explore a joint development of future cloud solutions in Microsoft Azure to support their respective game and content-streaming services. In addition, Apple is also going after the subscription model with the new Apple Arcade service, although it is not a cloud-based game streaming service as Arcade subscribers will need to download the games before playing. Interestingly, this leaves Nintendo out as the only major gaming company currently not exploring cloud gaming. Overall, it seems like the “access over ownership” dynamic is coming to the video game market at last.
While it is great that Stadia — and the shift towards cloud-based gaming it leads — leverages cross-platform compatibility to lower the entry barrier to gaming by being device-agnostic, the more ingenious part of Stadia is actually its strategic integration with YouTube. Stadia will allow viewers to start playing a game right where they watch a video of some game influencers playing said game, therefore turning gaming content on YouTube into a lead generator for the game publishers. This would also give YouTube a nice boost in terms of engaging with the gaming community and driving more eyeballs to the gaming content on its site. One reason why mobile games generate significant revenue is that mobile gamers “are much more receptive to advertising than non-gamers,” according to Newzoo’s 2019 findings. The report estimated that 2.4 billion people will play mobile games globally this year, and those users are highly monetizable, more so than those playing on PCs and consoles. As more cloud gaming services like Stadia and Microsoft’s xCloud service start to roll out, the ease of cross-platform they offer will likely further expand the gaming and esports audience, leading to more media spend in this sector.
Gesture Control Unlocks New Possibilities
The real star of this year’s hardware event is, of course, still the new Pixel phones, despite heavy pre-event leaks. Google spent a lot of time on stage talking about the new camera system on the Pixel 4, how Google’s AI expertise will help deliver state-of-art computational photography features, and how the front-facing cameras finally support facial recognition for unlocking devices, a la Apple’s Face ID, but most of these have become run-of-mill talking points whenever a new flagship phone launches and are unlikely to move the needle and drive sales.
However, Google does have an interesting trick up its sleeve when it comes to Pixel 4, which will evidently become the first mainstream smartphone to support contactless gesture control. This new Motion Sense feature is powered by Google’s proprietary Soli chip, which uses a miniature radar system for “real-time motion tracking of the human hand on a microscopic scale.” With Motion Sense, users can simply wave their hands at their Pixel phones to skip songs, snooze alarms, or silence phone calls. Google also promises new capabilities are in development.
While it may be a bit strange to add a contactless gesture control feature to a smartphone, which, in most cases, are held in users’ hands and controlled by touch, it is interesting to consider this as a stepping stone for incorporating gesture control into wearable devices or, more aptly, screenless devices such as smart speakers. The development of gesture control is a crucial element for the vision of a post-mobile world powered by IoT devices and wearables to truly work, and Google made the first step this week to making that vision a reality by introducing Motion Sense to its flagship smartphone, even though it won’t be able to bring much added value to the overall user experience yet. Expect the next iteration of Google Nest products to incorporate Motion Sense and improve the user experience of its smart home devices.
One More Thing: R.I.P Daydream
Lastly, it is interesting to note that Google has decided to discontinue its Daydream View VR headset, and confirmed that the Pixel 4 won’t support Daydream, Google’s own VR platform that is built into the Android mobile operating system since 2016. To be fair, the writing has been on the wall for Daydream VR for a while. The Pixel 3a and 3a XL Google released in May don’t work with Daydream either. Earlier this year, Google shut down its Spotlight Stories VR studio and Daydream’s Play Movies and TV app. In addition, Hulu also discontinued its support for Daydream VR last month. Now that an official confirmation has been issued, Google can finally move on from its mobile VR ambition to focus on its core strength in AI development.
It is no secret that the hype surrounding virtual reality has died down significantly over the past two years, thanks to stagnant hardware adoption that led to investors losing interest in funding the development in this space. Despite the arrival of more affordable, standalone VR headsets like the Oculus Quest and Lenovo Mirage Solo, VR adoption among consumers has yet to see a significant uptick. Global VR headset shipments have shrunk over 50% from 31 million units in 2017 to only 15 million units in 2018, according to the latest data from Strategy Analytics, signaling decreasing consumer interest. Daydream being shut down confirms this unfortunate trend for VR, as it struggles to gain users and become the “next big interactive media channel” that it was hyped to be.
That being said, just because VR is not ready for the spotlight today doesn’t mean it won’t be in the future. If you’re curious to learn more about the status quo of the consumer VR market and where it is going, please check out our recent in-depth piece on this very topic.
