Google's next TV Streamer box may finally justify its $150 price

The next Google TV Streamer will be a significant upgrade over the previous model, according to the latest rumors.

Thanks to a report from 9to5 Google, we have a pretty good idea of what Google's next TV box will contain, and it seems as if it will contain a number of new sensors with the capability to catapult your dumb TV into a fully-fledged smart TV. That includes presence sensing, far field microphones, and upgraded processors.

The new Google TV Streamer will be a big upgrade

Turn your normal display into a smart display

Google caused a bit of a consternation last month when it increased the price of its TV Streamer from $100 to $150. At the time, it was easy to look at what the TV Streamer offered, and conclude it wasn't worth the investment at that price — especially when Walmart continued to offer similar products at a lower cost.

However, the latest report about the new Google TV Streamer may help to tilt that equation back the other way. According to 9to5 Google's findings, the new TV Streamer may be a lot more impressive than the previous version.

In design, it's largely unchanged. It's a tad wider, in order to squish the contents down into a more compact size, but it's largely the same device as previously. The same can supposedly be said about the remote, as well, except for the addition of two more shortcut keys. Yay, everyone's favorite feature — shoehorned app buttons for streaming services you probably don't use.

Sadly, the report doesn't say which apps will be joining YouTube and Netflix, so fingers crossed they're ones you use.

With those minor additions out of the way, we can get to the meat and two potatoes of the report. The biggest new inclusion to the TV Streamer are the new microphones on the box itself. These small cutouts will listen for "Hey Google" commands, and will presumably work like any Google Home speaker you've used before.

Whether it simply makes the TV Speaker more useful and helpful in its own role, or will allow it to essentially replace another smart speaker isn't known, but it would be a nice feature to have.

The second-biggest addition are presence sensors. We saw these in the TCL QM9K recently, and in the shortest terms possible, it lets the device know when someone has walked into the room. This may seem like a weird feature to need, but it essentially means your TV will turn itself on and display a specific screen whenever someone enters the room. This could be used to show the time or the weather, but we assume it could also be used for other purposes.

Finally, it's also getting a new processor. This definitely isn't as exciting as everything else, but we're not complaining.

We don't know when the new TV Streamer will arrive, but we assume it will be sooner rather than later. It's certainly changed enough from the last model that it's worth waiting for if you were curious. Or, it might be worth buying one of Walmart's Onn boxes instead.