‘Bluey’ Snapdragon X Plus Chromebooks are also getting the iconic Google lightbar

For months, we’ve been operating under the assumption that the ‘Bluey’ baseboard (the foundation for the upcoming Snapdragon X Plus Chromebooks) was destined for top-tier status. Between the NPU-heavy silicon and its central role in the Aluminum project, all signs pointed to these being premium machines. Comments at the Snapdragon Summit between Google and Qualcomm execs made that pretty clear without coming right out and saying it.

Today, however, I now have the full confirmation I’ve been looking for. A new commit in the Chromium Gerrit shows that ‘Bluey’ is officially getting the Google lightbar treatment, so our likely-accurate assumptions about these devices now feel completely validated.

Confirmation of a flagship

In the world of Google hardware, the four-color lightbar has always been a sort of premium calling card. We don’t see this show up on entry-level EDU devices or mid-range clamshells. It is reserved for devices Google wants to use to showcase top-tier hardware that best highlights their current software.

The commit focuses on the “early enablement” of the lightbar, ensuring it fires up during the very first stages of the boot process to provide “visual feedback as early as possible.” Seeing this level of attention to detail for the boot sequence on ‘Bluey’ confirms what we already suspected: these devices are being designated as flagship torchbearers for the next era of ChromeOS and Project Aluminium.

The ‘Bluey’ family

This lightbar integration won’t be limited to a reference board. It will trickle down to the specific ‘Bluey’ offshoots we’ve been tracking, including:

• ‘Quartz’
• ‘Mica’
• ‘Quenbi’

We’ve already seen similar flagship prep for the Intel-based ‘Ruby’ and MediaTek-based ‘Sapphire’ devices. By bringing the lightbar to ‘Bluey’, Google is ensuring that the Snapdragon portion of the Aluminium project also comes equipped with this high-level marker on all associated devices.

The return of the lightbar is more than just a bit of nostalgia for the old Pixel Chromebook days. It signals that Google is enforcing a high-end hardware standard for this new wave of devices. With the Snapdragon X Plus under the hood, these machines are built to handle heavy AI workloads natively, and the lightbar is the perfect visual cue that there is something a bit more “Pro” going on under the hood. Alongside ‘Ruby’ and ‘Sapphire’ devices, this entire project is really gaining some high-end steam. And we’re here for it!