Is there a smart home device for gamers?

The NVIDIA Shield TV

A strong media streamer
4K @60fps
HDR-10
H.265

The nVidia Shield TV has had about the last year to mature, and so did Google Assistant. The Nest works like magic with using voice on the Shield’s Google Assistant, and much more such as Honeywell, Phillips Hue, SmartThings, WeMo. For the high-end, it also works with Control4 systems. So as a smart home device, it gets good marks for solid integration, including a microphone in both the included remote control and wireless controller, and the microphones are also voice-activated.

As for a gaming device, yes it can play android games, but most of them are ‘just okay’. At least it doesn’t struggle to play them one bit due to its surprising hardware under that compact hood. It packs the same 64-bit quad-core processor that lives inside the Nintendo Switch (Tegra X1)! Games (and other media) can either be stored in the 16gb internal storage, the 500gb hard drive model, or even a simple attached storage via USB.

But, what this puppy was designed to do will cause many gamers to shoot their own feet for not knowing about this sooner! The nVidia Shield can stream games which are installed on a nearby PC (a PC with an NVIDIA graphics card that is). And by streaming, do not cringe — there is virtually no input lag whatsoever!

The process is rather simple:

• The computer outputs and streams the very fast and high-quality H.265 encoded video signal over the network to the Shield, where it decodes the up to 4K video & HD audio to any living room display.
• Simultaneously, the Shield streams the controller inputs back to the computer.

The end result = Amazing

What makes it a great device for smart home automation?

Instead of yelling commands at a smart speaker located in just one place in your home, such as a coffee table, wouldn’t it be much nicer to be able to communicate with your home from every room, hallway, and even closet? Introducing the NVIDIA Spot, a smart microphone. With beam forming, farfield technology, and placing several of these Spots around the home, you should have no trouble whatsoever communicating with your smart home.

The Spot hasn’t been released yet, and there is no launch date set, but we cannot wait!