Google OnHub teardown shows large speaker, huge heatsink, lots of antennas, and a light sensor that doesn't yet work
Google OnHub gets torn asunder, reveals big speaker, many antennas — Google's OnHub router is packed with hardware that doesn't work yet.
Context & Ripple Effects
Two weeks after Ars found the $200 OnHub router underdelivered on performance and functionality, this teardown supplies the physical explanation: Google shipped a large speaker, an oversized heatsink, an antenna array, and a light sensor — most of it inert until software catches up. The router was designed as a platform first, a network device second.
That framing held up: within a month the device had been rooted and shown to be a Chromebook in router's clothing, confirming the generous internals were meant for capabilities Google hadn't enabled yet rather than for routing alone.
First-order effects
- Early buyers are holding $200 of dormant silicon — the speaker, extra antennas, and non-functional light sensor add cost without adding features today, hardening the review's value complaint.
Second-order effects
- Google leans further into OnHub as a lifestyle object rather than a spec play, selling interchangeable $29-$39 shells for the TP-LINK model — monetizing the industrial design while the software roadmap matures.
Third-order effects
- The dormant-hardware pattern resolves four years later in Nest Wifi's planned satellite units with built-in Assistant speakers — the OnHub bet that routers become voice-assistant endpoints, just executed under a different brand after OnHub itself stalled.
The trend: Consumer routers are being designed as future smart-home assistant hardware, with vendors shipping capability ahead of firmware and hoping software updates close the gap.