It’s no secret that while Google TV has a lot to offer, it could certainly be better. The Chromecast with Google TV and standalone devices have suffered from performance issues, laggy software, and low storage problems, but Google is ready to fix it.
For example, the Chromecast with Google TV didn’t get a single update in 2022 until seven months into the year, in mid-July. The dongle instantly received a ton of love and positive feedback at launch, but that quickly turned sour thanks to performance issues and other problems. And that’s before we mention TCL and Sony TVs with Google TV built-in.
Google this week announced a significant update for its TV platform that should hopefully put many of these problems to bed for good. More specifically, this update aims to address the two biggest issues facing users: laggy performance and low storage.
According to Google’s blog post, in several areas, including the Google TV home screen, “For You” tab, Live view, and even switching kids’ profiles will all be faster than before. From the moment you turn on a Google TV device, the home screen will start up and load faster, getting you to your shows as quickly as possible.
It sounds like everything from navigation, scrolling, switching tabs, live view, and more all received improvements in speed, performance, and animations. Basically, this is Google admitting its Google TV experience was awful and has since fixed it. Well, hopefully. Google says the software even uses less RAM, so once you choose what to watch, it’ll be able to stream more stable too.
And finally, Google added a “Free up storage” option in the settings menu, which was sorely needed. From here, owners can quickly and easily clear the cache, uninstall apps or streaming services they no longer use, and get important storage space back.
Plus, new under-the-hood changes allow Google TV to automatically free up space in the background to prevent users from seeing storage-related errors. We’re not sure what all that entails, and hopefully, it doesn’t auto-uninstall the least used apps, but we’ll have to wait and see.
Google says these features have already started rolling out to Chromecast with Google TV, and select smart TVs with Google TV should see system updates soon. If you don’t have a Chromecast with Google TV yet, grab one from our link below.
