Google is reportedly working on a more advanced sleep timer for Google TVs, in order to help avoid viewers who fall asleep on the sofa being rudely awakened by auto-playing trailers from the likes of Netflix that suddenly crank up the volume to get people’s attention.
The report comes from Android Authority, which has delved into the latest developer codebase for the Google TV Home application to try and see what new features are being worked on.
According to that publication, it has uncovered a number of references to a new, more sophisticated sleep timer in Google TV, which enhances the capabilities of the basic tool found in Android TV.
The feature in Android is pretty useless, because it doesn’t provide any pause and resume features, meaning that users who fall asleep are forced to go back through whatever parts of the episode they may have missed. Google TV’s enhanced sleep timer will add those features, and it will also introduce timer warnings at certain intervals, for example displaying a message that says “X minutes until the TV switches off”. Users will have the ability to easily override the sleep timer by asking for an extension.
This is somewhat unusual, because the code references a "sleep_timer_45_second_notification_action", which Android Authority points out is an odd choice that could suggest something else is being cooked up by Google, though it's not clear what that might be.
Still, the references to the sleep timer are only that for now. So far, it remains a work in progress, and there’s no clue when the feature may become available. When it does, it will most likely be delivered via a firmware update, Android Authority suggests.
Still, it could be a big improvement, considering that most people are unaware that their Google TVs even have a basic sleep timer. That’s because TV manufacturers have to use Android TVs’ capabilities to create their own sleep timer function, rather than it being baked into the main operating system, and they tend to bury it deep within the menus.
So the feature would likely mean we’re getting an easier-to-find and more consistent sleep timer experience across every Google TV.
