laxhockey11
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Epson has said select Lifestudio projectors running MediaTek's smart platform will pick up Google TV with Gemini through a firmware update, with the Lifestudio Grand first in the coming months and other models following through 2026. The pitch is conversational search instead of menu diving, one watchlist that syncs over from your phone, a claimed 700,000-plus movies and episodes indexed in one place, and a home panel for lights, thermostat and doorbell thrown up on the wall.
I keep trying to work out who this actually serves. Voice search on a TV in a lit living room is one thing. On a projector you are usually sitting in the dark, there is a fan running a couple of feet from the far-field mics, and half the time the unit sits behind your head rather than in front of it. Every projector I have owned with built-in voice ended up being driven by the button on the remote, never the always-listening mic, because the fan won that fight every time.
The part I would rather hear Epson talk about is app certification. The recurring complaint with projector smart platforms is not that search is stupid, it is that a streaming app runs at the wrong resolution or flat out refuses to authorise HD playback. A licensed Google TV build helps there far more than an assistant does, and that is the quiet reason this partnership matters.
No model list came with it beyond the Grand, no date past coming months, and no brightness figures attached to any of it. Hardware side stays as it was: 3LCD, with the audio system Epson developed alongside Bose.
If you already run a Google TV projector, did the assistant survive past the first fortnight, or did you go back to the remote?
I keep trying to work out who this actually serves. Voice search on a TV in a lit living room is one thing. On a projector you are usually sitting in the dark, there is a fan running a couple of feet from the far-field mics, and half the time the unit sits behind your head rather than in front of it. Every projector I have owned with built-in voice ended up being driven by the button on the remote, never the always-listening mic, because the fan won that fight every time.
The part I would rather hear Epson talk about is app certification. The recurring complaint with projector smart platforms is not that search is stupid, it is that a streaming app runs at the wrong resolution or flat out refuses to authorise HD playback. A licensed Google TV build helps there far more than an assistant does, and that is the quiet reason this partnership matters.
No model list came with it beyond the Grand, no date past coming months, and no brightness figures attached to any of it. Hardware side stays as it was: 3LCD, with the audio system Epson developed alongside Bose.
If you already run a Google TV projector, did the assistant survive past the first fortnight, or did you go back to the remote?
