Your Nest Hubs, speakers and more are now getting an updated ‘broadcast tone’. When you choose a device to broadcast, you usually hear the following sound. It’s Google’s way of providing audible confirmation that you’ve successfully linked your device to the speaker or screen. The old tone just below has a kind of drop at the end that gives you a kind of sinking feeling in your mind. It should probably sound ‘definite’ as if to say ‘yes, I did what you asked for – professionalism!’
In comparison, the new one has an upward inflection at the end with a sharper finish. I have no doubt that the psychology of this sound design is intentional. Google has been striving for a more “friendly”, “colorful” and “affordable” design for years and they have done so, a lot to succeed at it. In fact, I would be interested to see an analysis of this new tone from your sound engineer someday.
This kind of update seems small and unimportant, but whenever I hear the cast tone on the speakers in my house, the new sound seems to improve my mood a little more. Anything beats that horrible, dark sound that Hangouts has always made. I’m glad I don’t have to worry about that anymore.
Google’s long quest to completely revamp the Nest Hub screen, offering more familiar content and redesigning it entirely, is probably almost complete if they are concerned with sound design now. The Hub has come a long way, but the moment Google finishes something, they change everything again, so I’m sure this is not the last update we will see for these devices. Nest has been turning into his golden son for the past few years, and I love it.
Credit: 9to5Google
