Google TV’s getting an upgrade that could stop you swearing

(Image credit: Google / Future)

published 22 May 2024

Quick Summary

Google will reportedly add Find My Remote features to streaming devices soon, after references were discovered in Android TV 14.

You will need a compatible remote control, however.

Some tech updates are minor. And others will transform your life and have you dancing with joy in the streets. A new Google TV update may be in the second category, because it could mean an end to wondering where the hell you left the TV remote.

As spotted by Android Authority, there are references to a new feature in Android TV 14 called "find my remote". You don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce what that's going to do. And its presence in that particular software is significant because Android TV is the root of both the Google TV and Android TV software, so it's likely to be coming to multiple streaming devices sooner rather than later.

Finding lost remotes may sound like a solution to a very first world problem, but if your home is anything like mine then remote control hunting is a pretty common chore. So if nothing else it's likely to be good for your mood.

What Google says about Find My Remote

The text strings in the code make it clear how the feature will work. They say: "When Find my remote is enabled, you can play a sound to locate your Google TV remote if it’s misplaced.

There is a button on your Google TV that you can push to play a sound on your remote for 30 seconds. This only works with supported Google TV remote controls. To stop the sound, press any button on your remote."

There's both good news and bad news in that description, because the key words there are "this only works with supported Google TV remote controls". However, such remotes are coming.

Find My Remote is already in the new Onn Google TV 4K Pro streaming box from Walmart, and the description in Google's code indicates that this is not a Walmart thing but a Google TV thing. So you can expect plenty more models fairly soon. We just don't know which ones just yet.

The new feature should be made available to any Google TV that ships with Android 14 for TVs, but we don't know whether it'll be coming to TVs with older versions of the OS – and if it is, when it'll be made available.

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Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series; her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was shortlisted for the British Book Awards. When she’s not scribbling, Carrie is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind (unquietmindmusic).