A new report suggests that the upcoming Samsung Chromebook Pro may come with a “Wake on Voice” feature that would allow users to wake the Chromebook’s display from a sleep state simply by speaking to it. While there’s no confirmation yet that this is a feature that will launch with the Chromebook Pro let alone come to it at any point, details are mentioned in a commit on Chromium that state the Gru baseboard, which is the baseboard that was used in the build of the Samsung Chromebook Pro, will get “Wake on Voice support through the digital sensor processor.”
This is certainly not a confirmation of the feature, but it should be something to look out for if you’re considering picking up the Chromebook Pro when it launches. In addition to the first commit that mentions Wake on Voice, there is also a reference to “Ok Google” being the command to use for waking the display. While this could simply be a new feature and a means for waking the screen from a sleep state, it could also point to Google adding in Google Assistant support for Chromebooks. Whether or not this is the case is still unclear.
It is worth noting that there is no way of knowing right now that this is a feature that would make it beyond the Samsung Chromebook Pro, but if Google does have plans to expand the Wake on Voice and possibly Google Assistant to other Chromebooks, the Samsung Chromebook Pro could certainly be the starting point with other models planned to have it further down the line. Using the Chromebook Pro as a starting point could make sense, too, as Google have basically done something similar with the Play Store access on Chromebooks, beginning with a launch of the app on a few Chromebook models and steadily rolling it out to others as time goes on. Since there is no exact launch date for the Samsung Chromebook Pro right now, there is no detail on when a Wake on Voice feature might be available, but it’s not likely to be anytime soon, and could be well into the beginning of next year before it shows up.