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0 pointspdkl957y ago0 comments

Ok, so it could at least plausibly have been local processing. I haven't been able to find out what kind of CPU/etc is in the device, and most of the features would have been easy to implement on the almost any hardware. It would have been even stranger to also include a powerful (expensive) CPU to do a bunch of audio processing, but if there are techniques that work on $30 devices, that opens up a much broader range of cheaper hardware.

(I still think it's insane that the bean counters and value engineers let them include a microphone that wasn't needed.)

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baobrain7y ago

> I still think it's insane that the bean counters and value engineers let them include a microphone that wasn't needed.

Having worked on hardware products, the features planned sometimes (even often!) change after the hardware has been prototyped and an initial production order has been placed. It is cheaper to simply not ship the feature than it is to change the board.

Many in this comment section do not really seem to have much experience with hardware. It is fairly common for products to ship with unused hardware and it much more believable than malicious intent, especially given how disorganized Google is internally.

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