Verizon gets into the hardware game with a smart display
Smart Displays
Speaker 1: Hey, Verizon, why are you making a smart display? Verizon doesn't make hardware, but they're doing this. They're making a competitor to the nest hub and the show eight. So is there any chance this can keep up? Let's find out.
Speaker 1: So Verizon hasn't officially announced a smart display. The info comes from a filing with the FCC first spotted by tech site [00:00:30] protocol. And the filing clearly shows a smart display, a competitor to the nest hub by Google and the Amazon echo show eight, but this will, one's gonna have 4g built in. So it's mobile. This is strange in a lot of ways, but let's take a closer look at the filing to see what specs we can glean from it. Then we'll talk through all the oddities, then we'll assess if it can actually keep up with the competition. Let's [00:01:00] dive in.
Speaker 1: Looks like the model name is the L V D one, probably just a working title. You'll wake it up by saying, Hey Verizon, super catchy. It'll have an eight inch display, 1280 by 800 pixels, four gigabytes of Rams, 16 gigs of storage all well, and good. It's gonna have a front facing camera with a physical shutter and it should support Verizon's BlueJeans video conferencing service BlueJeans [00:01:30] is like zoom, but specifically aimed at businesses. So I wonder if this is gonna be a business first device, but how many businesses need an extra eight inch display? So am our already asking questions and that's pretty much it for the basics. So let's talk about the other weird stuff.
Speaker 1: This looks like it's going to be a white label. Amazon device, the shopping giant rolled out a custom assistant program earlier this year. What [00:02:00] that program allows companies to do is build Amazon on's assistant into their own device, along with unique wake words, such as hay, Verizon, and tailored commands. Specifically for that device. When I first heard about that program, I imagined companies making dishwashers or smart locks with Amazon's assistant it built in and unique commands like, Hey, run the dishwasher. I didn't think a giant [00:02:30] wireless carrier would be making a device that competes with one that Amazon already has. I wonder if that's what Amazon had in mind. Now, we don't know much about the interface for when you're controlling your device with a tap, it cook Amazon a while to get that right on their smart displays is Verizon gonna build their own.
Speaker 1: We do know it's gonna have 4g connectivity built in, so you'll be able to use the device even when it's not connected to wifi. Why does [00:03:00] that mean it's going to be battery powered? There's no indication of that in the filing, but even if it is why, so Verizon is going to have a 4g smart display built with a custom version of Amazon's assistant and of a similar size to Amazon's $130 brand new show eight, the show eight can follow you when you're on a video call and has access to a number of free video chat services, [00:03:30] such as Amazon's own app Verizon's blue jeans has a subscription cost. Are they hoping more consumer will sign up? Why would a consumer do that? Are they just trying to have an extra device that they can package in along with phone sales? Are they hoping consumers don't know about alternative first party devices is the smart display gonna be able to follow you when you're on video calls, like the show eight, there are so many questions, but [00:04:00] I digress.
Speaker 1: Most third party smart displays have a unique angle. Lenovos was the first with Google assistant built in. It came out before the nest hub and it was particularly stylish since then they've come out with other models aimed specifically at your nightstand and really streamlined for that purpose. JBLs focused on a extra sound quality. In addition to the display, LG had kind of an extra dose of crappiness, but what's the unique angle of Verizons. The one I see [00:04:30] is that 4g connectivity is that it, the FCC filing doesn't reveal all. There's no price, no release date. If the angle is 4g, they'll need to make a telling case for why we need a smart display on the move. We have these things called cell phones. You see if it's business first, maybe the 4g could come in particularly handy on something like a construction site, but this really does need a unique angle.
Speaker 1: I doubt it's gonna be able to keep up with Amazon or Google otherwise, [00:05:00] especially because it's using Amazon's own digital assistant. It's probably better that they're doing that though. Building a smart assistant from scratch is really hard. Just ask Samsung in Bigby or don't actually, cuz he probably won't get an answer. I'm very curious as to why Verizon is using a smart display to jump into the hardware game comment below to let me know if you think it could be cool or let me know what other brands you'd like to see, come out with their own [00:05:30] white label, smart display knockoff, maybe Disney. It could play cartoons and take over other smart displays might be neat. Thank you for watching. Please hit that thumb up button. If you enjoy the video and subscribe to CNET for much more tech videos. Oh boy. Huh? Thank you Mickey.
