NVIDIA Announces SHIELD TV Update & The SPOT AI Assistant Microphone

Following on from our coverage of the GeForce NOW Cloud Streaming service, NVIDIA is releasing a refresh to its SHIELD TV. This goes beyond gaming, streaming and otherwise replacing your smart TV; NVIDIA is also integrating some Artificial Intelligence into the system too.

At a basic level, the new SHIELD TV works like it did before. It provides you with media streaming capabilities that lets you use your TV in exciting new ways. With online video content streamers pushing 4K and HDR with some very strict controls in place, new hardware will be required. SHIELD TV works with Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Video, Google Play and VUDU, with 360-degree video on the supported list too.

The SHIELD is more than a smart TV extension, as it will work with any of your GeForce enabled PCs at home, allowing you to play desktop games on your TV, while all the heavy lifting is done by your PC. If your PC isn’t up to the task, you can play games via NVIDIA’s newly announced GeForce NOW streaming platform.

Since the SHIELD is an Android device, it has full access to the Google Play store, as well as thousands of games available directly from NVIDIA’s own store that leverage the powerful processing capabilities of the SHIELD itself.

That’s all well and good, since the original SHIELD could do most of that already (minus the 4K UHD HDR streaming), so what makes this SHIELD so special? That would have to be support for the full range of capabilities provided by Google Assistant.

Voice control and native language are big business, just look at the success of Amazon’s Echo. Google Assistant will turn the SHIELD into a smart hub for all your home automation and media control needs. Use voice commands to select and play films or music with natural language, instead of navigating menus by voice, as well as pause, rewind, check local weather and do your usual internet searches.

Update: It turns out the hardware for this shield is the same as the last model (Tegra X1 SoC), the only differences are a new controller, remote is bundled, and a firmware update for 4K streaming. Existing Shield users will however, be able to use Google Assistant in the future.

NVIDIA SPOT

What makes things more interesting is a brand new product from NVIDIA called SPOT. This is an AI home control microphone that plugs into any available power outlet, and connects to your SHIELD TV, extending the capabilities of the SHIELD and Google Assistant to anywhere in your home. The NVIDIA SPOT uses beam-forming microphones to pick up your voice from anywhere in the room, and multiple SPOTS can triangulate where in the room you are and who issued the command.

Control thermostats, play music in a particular room, adjust the lighting, request an Uber… make a pot of coffee. If you have any IoT devices that can be linked to Google, you can control them with the SHIELD from anywhere in your home that has a SPOT installed.

The new SHIELD will retail for $199.99, which includes a controller and remote. A SHIELD Pro will also be made available with a 500GB hard drive. The NVIDIA SPOT microphone accessory for the SHIELD will be available a little later for $49.99.