One common complaint with allGoogle TV-powered streaming sticks and TVs is their slow performance. Googlerolled out an update earlier this year to address this issue, enabling faster start-up times, smoother animations, and reduced RAM usage. But there’s always room for improvement, as Google TV can still feel sluggish, with the recommendations taking a long time to load and scroll through. The company has now announced another set of performance improvements for Google TV to address these complaints and deliver a better user experience.
How to use Google TV
How to use Google’s version of Plex
In itsannouncement, Google says it has optimized how Google TV recommendations are loaded and its memory usage. Many system apps have been further simplified to make them “lighter” than before. All these changes combined help reduce memory usage and make general navigation smoother than before. App load times have been reduced, allowing them to open and load content much faster.
Google claims to have improved the response time of many home screen features, like preloading rows of movies and shows before you even start scrolling through them. Tab loading has been optimized for quicker load times, and search results should also load faster than before. Lastly, the company says it has “made changes to device setup to reduce the size of preinstalled apps you don’t use.”
Limited storage is another pain point of Google TV devices, especially on the Chromecast with Google TV. So, it is good to see the company’s continued efforts to free up as much space as possible.
The Live TV experience in Google TV is also improving, with the Live tab gaining two new sections: Recents and Local news. You can quickly access your recently streamed live TV channels with the former. With the number of free live TV channels on Google TV growing rapidly, the Recents section will be a welcome addition. Google recently evenadded a new home screen icon on Android TVto provide access to its free ad-supported TV channels. Previously, they were only accessible from the Live tab.
As for Local news, it will show channels broadcasting news related to your region, making it easier to find local content that’s more useful to you.
Google says all the performance and storage space enhancements are already rolling out to Google TV devices worldwide. TheChromecast with Google TV just got its October 2023 security patch, but these improvements don’t appear linked to that release.
This is the second performance-focused update Google TV has received this year. The previous update arrived in May 2023, adding support for app hibernation and faster remote button response times. Google also used App Bundles to reduce the size of Google TV apps by 25% for space savings.
These changes might not fully resolve the laggy Google TV experience on most low-end streaming sticks but should still help deliver a better user experience.
