Google’s new Pixel Stand charger is quietly brilliant

[Photo: Google]

Tech companies are trying to convince us that we need more gadgets and more screens at home. But today at Google’s yearly hardware event, the company took a slightly different tack. Along with announcing a new smart speaker with a screen, Google also showed off a small device that might just render that screen obsolete: A wireless charger than doubles as a phone stand called the Pixel Stand.

This isn’t just a wireless charger. When you place the new Pixel 3 phone on it, the phone’s entire UI reorients, effectively turning Pixel 3 into a Google Assistant-enabled smart speaker. With the Pixel Stand, you don’t need to buy the new $149 Google Home Hub because your phone does most of the same things anyway, including giving you contextual information based on what time of day it is. In the morning, it’ll offer the rundown of your day, which you can access through a single tap or by asking with your voice; in the evening, it might instead show a shortcut to search for recipes.

“We want to give people choices,” says Ivy Ross, Google’s VP of hardware design. “Someone that might not want to have a Hub in every room. This is a beautiful way to do more than one thing at once.”

Because the design team learned that many people leave their phones on their nightstand to charge, the Stand enables a new setting in the Pixel 3 that mimics sunrise alarm clocks, slowly turning the screen from deep red to a bright yellow to wake you up. Google also designed the charger so that you can set up your preferences based on how you want to use it: For instance, setting the Pixel to charge on your nightstand could automatically show pictures of your family, while putting it on a charger at work might show more landscape photos.