A Mysterious Google Gadget With 60GHz Soli Radar Just Crossed the FCC

We’ve been waiting for years for Google’s tiny radar to live up to its potential. Now, it looks like the company is at least giving Soli another chance. According to records at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Google now has a mysterious “wireless device” that features 60GHz short-range radar technology — as well as 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and some kind of “baseboard.” .

What could this device be? One early guess is that it’s simply a new Nest thermostat, and that might make sense. FCC records do not show that this device has radios other than 2.4 GHz and 60 GHz; the Nest Thermostat 2020 was similarly light on radios, but it used Soli radar to automatically detect when you’re in front of the thermostat and illuminate the screen invisibly hidden behind the mirror. It would also make sense for a thermostat to have a “base plate”, of course, be it wall mountable or possibly even a position.

An update to Google’s 2021 Nest Hub, which added Soli radar for sleep tracking, seems less likely — a smart home hub would certainly have low-power radio technology like Thread or Zigbee to control other smart home devices, and there aren’t any. mention of any of them. here. But in 2024, I would honestly expect any Google smart home gadget to have Thread, so would it really be a thermostat, a smoke alarm, or that kind of gadget?

It appears to be something hardwired, as there’s no mention of batteries — not even the pair of AAA batteries that appeared in the FCC filing for the 2020 Nest Thermostat. Today’s filing shows that the mystery new gadget was tested plugged into AC power (by via a “configuration box”) or connected to a USB cable connected to a laptop. (First Nest thermostats technically it has USB ports which can be used to charge.)

I have a hard time imagining it could be a smart speaker with just 2.4GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi, since even Google’s cheapest Nest Mini speakers also support the 5GHz band.

Could it be the leaked Pixel Watch 3? One of Google’s first tech demos for Soli was on a smartwatch, and Google watches don’t use the 5GHz band; 2.4GHz, Bluetooth, and Soli would be enough for a Wi-Fi-only variant of the watch, and the “base plate” could be a charger. But no, Google claims this device will typically be at least 20cm away from a person and has not conducted radiation tests for this reason:

It’s similar to what was said about the Nest Thermostat in 2020: “The antenna of this product, under normal conditions of use, is at least 20 cm away from the user’s body. Therefore, this device is classified as a Mobile Device.”

Any FCC detectives have a better idea? For now, I think it’s still a mystery.