It looks as if Google is preparing to launch a 4K capable HDMI dongle after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) published documentation submitted by a Chinese manufacturer.
Originally highlighted by reddit user 513, the FCC site displayed pictures, specifications, and even the instruction manual. The Shenzhen SEI Robotics Co. Ltd devices is described as a 4K ATV Stick. It comes with the Google Assistant.
The Android TV device is built on a quad-core Amlogic S905X SoC (consisting of four Cortex A53s at 1.5GHz or 2GHz), 2GB of RAM, and 8GB of storage. It supports hardware-accelerated video decoding at 4K/60FPS from both H.265 and Google’s own VP9 codec.
At this stage the product is likely to be no more than a prototype, but could be a competitor for the Amazon Fire TV dongle, with Alexa voice support, currently retails at around £40 (€46).
Such a product would be a departure for Google, which has previously run Android TV through deals with TV manufacturers or set-top boxes.
One word of caution, the Chinese manufacturer, may not yet have Google’s blessing, but the removal of some elements of the application from the FCC site suggests there may be something for Google to tell. It’s made no comment so far.
