3

The IFIXIT Google Home tear-down reveals the Marvell Avastar 88W8897 WLAN/BT/NFC SoC.

  • Are there any known NFC use cases that the Google Home supports?
  • Any announcements from Google if the device will enable a NFC related feature by the way of future software updates?
Improve this question
1
  • 1
    One obvious future possibility use might be to use this to make a more streamlined setup flow for WiFi for Android users, though BTLE, some of the peer-to-peer wifi options and greater programmatic control of WiFi on Android somewhat diminish the need. Often with something like this the capability is latent in the hardware until a software team has resources and priority authorization to make use of it.
    – Chris Stratton
    Commented Jun 30, 2017 at 18:26

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
2

Currently, there is no support for NFC on the Google Home. I couldn't find an authoritative source to say that there isn't support, but there are no known features as of writing that use NFC capabilities. I'm also not aware of any plans in the near future to use the chip.

Note that the chip is used by several other devices (most notably the Xbox One) which do not actually use the NFC capability of the chip at all. And, as noted by IFixIt, the Google Home is internally very similar to the Chromecast, which also has a NFC-enabled chip without actually using it:

Marvell Avastar 88W8887 VHT WLAN, Bluetooth, NFC and FM Receiver

I would conjecture that the chip is simply the best option that is mass produced for Google's device, and the fact that NFC is supported was not a factor in their chip choice.

Similarly, the Google Home has full Bluetooth support, but didn't use it... until very recently. It's a sign that they probably could support NFC in future, but a suitable use case would need to be devised. However, there are no known plans right now.

Improve this answer

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.