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Google may put its Fuchsia OS on smart home devices within three years

Google may put its Fuchsia OS on smart home devices within three years

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The Fuchsia team wants to replace Chrome OS and Android with something new

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Google’s Project Fuchsia OS has been shrouded in mystery for the past few years. It was discovered almost two years ago when the company began quietly posting code to its GitHub repository and expanded with an actual “Armadillo” system UI last year, but there’s been little to no information about what Google intends to do with Fuchsia.

According to a new report from Bloomberg, the Fuchsia team’s goal is nothing less than creating a single, unifying operating system that could run on all of Google’s devices: replacing Android, Chrome OS, and powering all of Google’s smart home hardware. The time frame is similarly ambitious: the team hopes to release a connected home device powered by the new OS within three years to introduce Fuchsia before moving on to larger devices like laptops and phones within the next five years.

It’s certainly an interesting idea that would give Google a second chance to build a more secure, easily updated OS to enable even better cross-platform integration than the current Chrome OS / Android divide. Security is also said to be something at the core of Fuchsia, which could help Google better compete with Apple’s more tightly locked down iOS, too.

But before anyone gets too excited about a massive overhaul of Google’s entire software strategy with a brand-new cross-platform OS, remember that neither Google CEO Sundar Pichai nor Android and Chrome chief Hiroshi Lockheimer have signed off on the Fuchsia plan. In a statement released to The Verge, a Google spokesperson commented that “Fuchsia is one of many experimental open source projects at Google. We’re not providing additional details about the project at this time.” Additionally CNET reports that there in fact isn’t even a formal five-year timetable at all for the project within Google, disputing Bloomberg’s earlier report.

In other words, it seems there’s a long way to go before Google as a whole even considers implementing Fuchsia, to say nothing of it actually reaching the market as an Android and Chrome OS replacement.

Update July 19th, 2:40pm: Updated with a statement from Google and additional details from CNET.