Android TV is a format which is slowing seeing its momentum picking up of late. In fact, this is one of the reasons as to why there was every little mention of the platform at this year’s I/O event. Due to the platform still being in its infancy and the roll out of various devices which come powered by Android TV being so slow, there was not exactly a lot of updating Google could provide the Android TV public with. However, the benefit of such a slow roll out is that now the devices are finally beginning to land and, as a result, excitement once more it starting to escalate.
One of the devices which was announced back at the start of the year to be coming running on Android TV was a selection of Sony TV units. Unlike the standalone options like the Nexus Player, Razer Forge and Nvidia Shield, the Sony options were coming with Android TV built-in. Well, the TV’s have now arrived and it looks like Sony are working on some interesting additions to go with them. In fact, one of them is already here and landed on the Play Store yesterday in the form of the TV SideView Voice Plug-in
As the name suggests this is a plugin (in spite of coming in a separate app form) and is designed to work with the already listed Play Store app of the same name. However, what makes this plug-in so interesting from the Android TV point-of-view is that the plugin allows for users to use voice search on their Android TV powered Sony TV from their smartphone. The plugin allows the user to search through programming, content and so on. Unfortunately, this will only work with Sony TV’s and cannot be used with other Android TV devices, regardless of whether you have a Sony smartphone or not. Not to mention, the plugin does not work as a standalone app and does need the main Sony SideView app installed. Otherwise, the app is listed as compatible with most major manufacturer handsets and is available now. Those interested and wanting to know more can click the source link below to head over to the Play Store listing.
