The upcoming ‘Chromecast HD’ will reportedly ship with Google TV based on Android 12

Google has announced a hardware launch event for October 6. At the event, the company will introduce the new Pixel 7, Pixel 7 Pro, Google Pixel Watch, and “the latest smart home devices.” Although the company has not revealed any details about the smart home devices it will showcase at the event, recent leaks suggest that the lineup might include a new Chromecast HD.

While we’ve seen plenty of leaks about the upcoming Chromecast HD in the last few months, developer Kuba Wojciechowski has now obtained an unreleased software build for the device that reveals additional details. The build confirms that the Chromecast HD will launch with Google TV based on Android 12 and will pack an Amlogic S805X2 SoC with support for AV1 decoding.

As expected, the device sports an Amlogic S805X2 with support for AV1 decoding. The SoC is a considerable downgrade from the S905X3 in the 4K model (except the AV1 decoding). pic.twitter.com/U2gCAFiLg8

— Kuba Wojciechowski (@Za_Raczke) September 12, 2022

Even though the Amlogic S805X2 SoC is a significant downgrade compared to the Amlogic S905X3 on the 4K model, the latter doesn’t feature support for AV1 decoding. The AV1 decoding support and 1080p video output limitation could result in the HD variant offering better performance than the 4K model, despite its weaker SoC. However, we’ll have to wait till the device lands in our hands to confirm if that’s the case.

Furthermore, Wojciechowski reveals that the Chromecast HD will offer 1.5GB of RAM and support for virtual A/B seamless updates with compression. The latter could result in better software support for the device since this method of delivering software updates is not limited by the amount of internal storage on the device.

The HD version, however, supports A/B updates (virtual A/B with compression, to be precise). This comes with a great advantage – the updates can completely skip being downloaded to storage, instead being directly streamed to the partitions. https://t.co/630wsC8eOx pic.twitter.com/52IpoRMSOC

— Kuba Wojciechowski (@Za_Raczke) September 12, 2022

The firmware also includes a render of the remote that might ship with the Chromecast HD, which looks nearly identical to the one Google bundles with the 4K model. Lastly, the firmware states that the device will offer Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.2 support.