Your Nest Hubs, speakers, and more are now receiving an updated ‘casting tone’. When you choose a device to cast to, you generally hear the following sound. It’s Google’s way of giving you an audible confirmation that you’ve successfully linked your device to the speaker or display. The old tone just below has a sort of down-turn at the end of it that gives you a sort of sinking feeling in your mind. It’s probably meant to sound ‘definitive’ though as if to say ‘yes, I’ve done what you asked – professionalism!’
By comparison, the new one has an upward inflection at the end of it with a higher-pitched finish. There’s no doubt in my mind that the psychology of this sound design is intentional. Google has been striving towards a more “friendly” and “colorful” and “approachable” design for years now and they’ve done so, so much to succeed in this. I’d actually be interested to see a breakdown of this new tone from their sound engineer one day.
These sorts of updates seem small and unimportant, but for as many times as I hear the casting tone on my speakers throughout my home, the new sound seems like it would lift my mood a bit more. Anything beats that horrible, dark pit of a sound that Hangouts has made since forever. I’m just glad we won’t have to worry about that anymore.
Google’s long quest to completely revamp the Nest Hub’s display, offering more family-friendly content and redesigning it entirely is probably near complete if they’re concerning themselves with the sound design now. The Hub has come a long way, but the moment Google finishes something, they change it all again, so I’m sure this isn’t the last update we’ll see for these devices. Nest is turning into their golden child these past few years, and I love it.
Credit: 9to5Google
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