Google Working On A Home Entertainment Platform Which May Be Called Android Hub

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A source familiar with the matter said that Google is working on a Home Entertainment system that will be released to the market in order to replace the Google TV platform which has been mostly a failure. Although the TV industry is on a downfall, and only a few companies have something positive to report, it seems like Apple and Google won’t give up on it just yet. A new Apple TV will be released by the end of the year, while Google is preparing to replace Google TV with Android Hub.

It is said that Google’s upcoming home entertainment platform will be able to stream music wirelessly in a home. The new Android Hub [if it's going to be called like this] will be a set-top box that will be able to stream various content including movies, photos and more, and it may be revealed this year if things will go according to plan. It is said that Google is testing this thing heavily, and everything must be “perfect” because it cannot afford to experience another failure in this department.

The inside source claims that we are going to hear more at the Google I/O conference which will take place at the end of June. At last year’s event, Google did mention something about this platform which may also  be called Android@Home. The search giant said that it signed agreements with different companies in order to create an impressive home automation system that would support all devices from all manufacturers.

Google is currently waiting for FCC’s approval on home entertainment systems that feature WiFi and Bluetooth so we can tell for sure that the company is cooking something. Google TV may not be abandoned completely as the rumor mill suggests that new hardware will be released this year, and all devices will run on cheap ARM CPUs.

Anyway, Android Hub devices are rumored to be priced somewhere between $99 to $149, and all of them will feature Bluetooth, WiFi, while some may even get a NFC chipset. The home entertainment devices will not have too much flash storage because the content will be streamed from the user’s Google cloud storage account that will be launched this summer.

The devices will run on the “latest Android version,” presumably Ice Cream Sandwich, and Android Market will be pre-installed thus allowing the users to download apps and other content.