Google has updated its TV operating system with a nifty new feature that could hint towards a new addition to its streaming portfolio. Google TV, which powers a range of TVs and streaming devices including the Sony Bravia 8, Philips OLED809, and the new Google TV Streamer, added support for backlit remotes in a recent update. However, it's not as straightforward as it sounds.
It appears as though Google isn't quite ready to roll this new feature out yet, as the options to enable and customise the backlight on your remote are buried in the code of this new update, and were discovered by AFTVNews (via FlatpanelsHD).
The code hints towards three customisable settings – never, standard, and scheduled – which will adjust when the remote backlight is in use. Never turns it off completely, standard will illuminate the backlight for five seconds after a button is pressed, and scheduled acts like standard, but will only activate between 6pm and 6am.
So, why has Google implemented this new feature? Its motives are as of yet unknown, however, it could hint towards a new iteration of the Google TV Streamer that features a backlit remote. Considering that the Google TV Streamer is less than a year old, we'd presume that if Google were to introduce a new model, it would be a step-up model; perhaps a Google TV Streamer Pro.
Further speculation lies around an upgraded remote that Google could sell separately, akin to Amazon's Alexa Voice Remote Pro for Fire TV, which also sports backlit buttons alongside a find-my-remote feature and a customisable shortcut button.
Finally, this could just be integrated with Google TV-powered devices that already have backlit remotes. Sony and Philips bundle in backlit remotes with their premium TVs, so we could see new customisation come to these existing products when this feature is fully implemented.
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