Google now has two more years to impress me with the Pixel Tablet
What you need to know
- The Pixel Tablet was first released on June 20, 2023, and was supposed to receive updates for three years after the release date.
- Google has officially extended this period to June 2028, which means Pixel Tablet owners will see new Pixel features for longer than expected.
- Google has yet to announce a follow-up to the Pixel Tablet, making it a one-of-a-kind product so far.
I got the pixel tablet about a year after it came out because I was looking to replace the old Nest Hub in my kitchen. The build felt and at times felt like a great replacement for the Nest, including taking the tablet and bringing it anywhere around the house if I needed to do more than just set smart home timers. While I enjoyed the first year of use I feel like things have slowed down a bit since then.
Until today, it seems that I may never get the full use of the Pixel Tablet since the first promise of Google software updates ended in June 2026. It turns out that the company seems to have a renewed vision for the Tablet as it has now extended that software update agreement with two more years, which means that the company now has 3 years in total to release some new software features and make the tablet attractive again.
9to5 Google has spotted an update to the support documentation for the Pixel series. This same thing has happened in the past with older Pixel phones, like the Pixel 6 and Pixel 7, which received extended life support long after it was expected to expire. Now, Pixel Tablet owners can expect to see software updates until June 2028, which means we could actually see some really interesting Gemini integration going forward.
Android Central Take
Since Google has yet to announce a new Pixel Tablet or a proper follow-up to the Nest Hub Max, many were hoping that Google would extend the life of the Pixel Tablet for a long time. It seems that we have our desire, but it is a tablet still It’s not the Nest Hub replacement I was hoping for.
My first impressions of it were high, as it includes the same great Google Photos screen saver functionality that I loved with the Nest Hub, as well as an amazing custom home “lock screen”, high-quality audio, and many of my favorite voice-activated features. But it was also less powerful than the Nest Hub for a few functions, as I’ve found over the years that you often have to turn on the tablet for some voice commands to work, even if you’re not enabled by the lock screen.
Now that Google has extended the life of the tablet, I’m hoping it fixes some of these silly little issues and turns the Nest Hub Max 2 into something I’ve been looking for. If not, I want Gemini to work on the lock screen, and it’s going to take a major software update to make that happen – something that exists now. actually it is now possible that Google will be updating it for another 30 months.
