Google Nexus Q streaming media hub

Let’s assume for a moment that you are a member of the Android team at Google. You’ve decided that you really like the concept behind Apple’s AirPlay, but you believe you have a better way to go about it. You develop the concept, present it to your superiors, and the idea is generally accepted. In fact, this sounds like a fantastic thing for Google’s new set top box program, right? Unfortunately, it requires a lot more horsepower than what is in the flagship Google TV device, and for the moment you have a vested interest in keeping “Project Tungsten” pretty close to home until you figure out what this concept is really useful for.

Ultimately, you make a completely new piece of hardware, but make it completely hackable. This way your customers can help you figure out exactly what to do with this concept gadget. That hardware is called the Nexus Q.

Hardware

The Nexus Q is a matte black, zinc orb with a single flat section so you can set it down without it rolling away. Half of the orb can be spun to the left and the right, and you can press the rotating half in just a bit, almost like you are pressing a really big button. Unless you are trying to bring it through airport security, most people wouldn’t give the Nexus Q more than half a glance while it was off — it’s an unassuming piece of hardware that very closely resembles a paperweight.

On the other half of the orb, the side you will probably only ever look at once, there are four banana plugs, a micro HDMI port, a micro USB port, ethernet, optical audio, and power. The Q is designed to be connected to your home theater system, and once it is connected this little orb starts to make a little more sense.

Inside the Nexus Q is very nearly the same hardware as the Samsung Galaxy Nexus — it has the same processor, RAM, and the Q even has NFC. The biggest difference, aside from the form factor, is the 25 watt amplifier inside to help deliver quality audio.

Once you have the device powered, there’s a ring of light round the middle of the device, and a single dot on the front of the device that glows the same color. This is the only indication from the device you will get that everything is working. Turn your television to the appropriate input, and you’ll be greeted with a welcome screen and a link to the Nexus website. The Nexus Q does absolutely nothing by itself, it is entirely controlled by an Android device. Preferably, an Android device running NFC. If you tap an NFC enabled device to the top of the Nexus Q, you’ll be taken to the Q app in the Google Play Store, and you’ll be ready to go.
The bottom of the Nexus Q had an inscription that caught me by surprise the first time I read it. It reads “Designed and Manufactured in the USA” which is a rarity to say the least. According to Google, there was a desire to quickly design the Nexus Q in a way that didn’t involve flying people back and forth to China. Additionally, Google has made no secret of their desire to keep things under wraps before a release. Companies to work with Google before the release of a product typically have to contribute inside a building in Mountain View, and none of their work leaves the campus. I think many people, myself included, were quite surprised by the announcement of the Nexus Q. This probably has a lot to do with being able to manufacture it right down the street.

Software

The Nexus Q has one job: to receive instructions. Sometimes those instructions are to pull a song from your Google Music account and play it, and sometimes they are to grab a video from YouTube or Google Movies and play it. Once it received those instructions, the Q will use your account to find the media you requested and start playing it. As long as you have a good internet connection, the Nexus Q does a great job playing these things.

If you have multiple devices, signed into multiple accounts, that’s not a problem. Anyone connected to your WiFi that has paired with the Q can either take over playback entirely or add things to a queue. If you’ve got a bunch of Android fans in your midst, you’ve got the potential to have a pretty slick crowdsourced music player, or a clever mechanism for YouTube night after a new too many drinks with friends. For now, that’s all this does. In a way, it can be compared to early AirPlay days, except this puts the hard work on the Q instead of on your phone. Your battery will thank you, that’s for sure.

The kicker here is that the Nexus Q is the only game in town for this content. Unless you have a HTPC connected to your television, the Nexus Q is the only way to get Google Movies on your television. For reasons that continue to escape me, this is not available on Google TV yet. Google Music is available on the Google TV boxes, but anyone who has used a Logitech Revue will tell you the experience is less than great.

The Nexus Q is just for Google’s content, which falls right in line with the big push Google made with the branding switch to the Play Store. Google wants people to buy digital content from them, even though they don’t seem completely sure how it is their audience wants to enjoy that content. What the Nexus Q really needs is apps support. Instead of installing apps on the device, APIs need to be readied to allow for things like Netflix, Hulu, and everything else under the sun to be able to play their content on the device.

The Nexus Q has another secret power, and that is that the device is a Nexus. Like every other Nexus device, that means that it supports Fastboot and is open source. The operating system that powers the Q, according to Google, is stock Android 4.0. There have already been reports of hackers out there trying to get games running on the device, and plans to attempt some kind of DLNA server running on it for local media that might not exist on your phone. With the source code to the Nexus Q in hand, and considering it’s familiar hardware, it seems like it is only a matter of time before something like CyanogenMod or a similar developer group is working on some clever new ways to interact with the device. This places the device pretty far out of the realm of a “consumer” device, and much closer to the “hacker” type gadget for the foreseeable future.

Final Thoughts

In a world where Google’s own Nexus 7 is only $199, the $299 price tag on the Nexus Q is a lot to swallow. Even if you consider that comparable amps are about $100 and devices like Roku and AppleTV are about $100, there’s still about $100 not really accounted for, unless you consider that it’s made in the USA and might see some great hacks down the road.

The Nexus Q represents a lot of positive things. It’s the first piece of hardware Google has ever made from the ground up. It’s a device that clearly demonstrates a desire to wrap their users in a Google-centric content system, and it’s a hardware platform that their core audience is going to really enjoy messing around with. I don’t see the Nexus Q flying off the shelves anytime soon, but I can certainly see the potential in a device like this, and look forward to seeing what I consider to be a new approach at taking on the TV.