After years of development and testing, Google‘s Fuchsia OS is finally ready for prime time. The company is now widely rolling out the new operating system to its first-gen Nest Hub devices (originally Google Home Hub). A recent update for the devices changes the underlying operating system from the Linux-based Cast OS to Fuchsia OS. The new firmware version is 1.52.260996, 9to5Google notes.
According to the report, there’s hardly any noticeable difference between a Nest Hub running Cast OS and another one running Fuchsia OS. The latter appears to be slightly quicker in booting or loading apps, but only just. Otherwise, the UI and performance remain largely unchanged. So much so that a normal user would not even notice that their device’s operating system has been switched while it was sitting on the table doing its regular job. Perhaps that’s part of Google’s goal.
Nonetheless, kudos to the company for making that happen. Switching the underlying OS on a real-world device via an over-the-air (OTA) update is by means a small feat. That said, Google did run a preview program for Fuchsia OS earlier this year. Late in May, the company rolled out the new OS to select real-world Nest Hub devices that were enrolled in the program. The idea was to discover and iron out bugs, if any, before a wider rollout.
The preview program served its purpose quite well. It helped the company catch an issue where the screen was turning purple following the update for some users. The issue was apparently caused by a new “Color correction” accessibility setting. It was inadvertently enabled on Fuchsia OS and turning it OFF via the Google Home app settings fixed the problem.
It seems there weren’t any other major issues with this operating system switching. As such, Google is now rolling out this update widely to every first-gen Nest Hub unit.
Every first-gen Nest Hub will get the Fuchsia OS upgrade
If you own a first-gen Google Nest Hub, there’s a good chance that your device is now running a different OS than it did out of the box. But, as said earlier, this doesn’t really change anything for users, so you may not even ever notice it. Also, since Nest Hub updates occur overnight, you will likely not know when the switch took place.
But you can check whether your device is running Fuchsia OS or Cast OS quite easily. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen and tap on the gear icon to open the Settings app. Tap About device and scroll to the bottom. If you see “Operating System Version” on the list, your device is running Fuchsia OS. If it’s still on Cast OS, do not worry. The update should reach your unit anytime now.