I've been reviewing TVs for decades – this new Google TV feature could have saved me 100s of hours
A new Gemini feature seems so obvious, I wish it happened years ago
Quick Summary
Google has started to roll out a new Gemini feature to select Google TVs.
It allows uses to change picture and sound settings through conversational voice commands, even without technical know-how.
A new feature has started to arrive on select Google TV models that would have made my life so much simpler over the years.
You can now use voice control to direct Gemini to adjust a TV's picture settings, and even fix picture or sound issues. And as it uses advanced AI, you can use conversational language to do so – you don't even have to know what settings to change.
As the former deputy editor of Home Cinema Choice, I've tested my fair share of TVs over the years and one of the biggest time sucks was switching between picture modes and tweaking them. It also means I'm a stickler for getting the picture just right at home too – across the multiple models in my house.
That includes individual tweaks for different types of content, even specific movies, TV shows or games. And on most TVs, that means multiple clicks on the remote just to get to the right settings.
However, this new Gemini feature will allow you to change settings like brightness, contrast and picture mode, plus sound options through simply chatting with your TV. Just press the mic button on your remote and say, "Set picture mode to Movie," for example. Or, "Improve the dialogue."
You can also troubleshoot issues by telling your Google TV that the picture is too dark, etc.
And Gemini can be used to tweak and calibrate images, such as making the picture more cinematic just by asking it to do so. You won't need to go into specifics if you don't want to.
There's just one catch to all this – it's only available on a handful of TCL TVs at present, and exclusively in the US. It'll be rolled out to additional Google TV models worldwide over time, but for now it's just for the TCL QM9K, X11L, QM9L, QM8L, and RM9L.
If you have one of those sets, you need to head to system updates in your settings to check if the latest software is available (if it hasn't automatically installed).
The rest of us will have to wait a bit longer, which is fine – I've been waiting a couple of decades for something like this, what's a few months more?
