What you need to know
- Chrome OS' Phone Hub feature could soon let you take phone calls on your Chromebook.
- The functionality could be tied to the upcoming "Eche" feature.
- Once "Eche" rolls out, you'll be able to mirror your Pixel phone on your Chromebook desktop.
Google will soon make it possible for users to make phone calls from their Chromebooks, according to a new commit added to the Chromium Gerrit.
While the commit suggests it will only enable notifications for incoming calls, the actual flag description points to it enabling the ability to make and receive calls. As pointed out by the folks at ChromeUnboxed, it wouldn't make any sense to have notifications for outgoing calls.
The functionality is likely to be a part of an upcoming "Eche" feature, which will enable Pixel users to mirror their phone screen to their Chromebook. This could also mean that the ability to make and receive phone calls from a Chromebook will be limited to Pixel users, at least initially. Google may eventually expand the feature to more Android devices.
The feature is likely to work similarly to Microsoft's Your Phone app, which makes it possible to make and receive calls from the best Samsung phones on your PC. It also allows users to interact with their favorite Android apps and device content on their PC with the Phone Screen feature.
Like the ability to take phone calls, the phone mirroring feature is also not functional right now, even in the Canary Channel. While there's no word on exactly when the rollout will begin, it should become available in the beta channel a few weeks before it becomes widely available to users.
Aside from the ability to take phone calls, Google is also working on allowing Chromebook users to view their recent photos in the Phone Hub UI. The feature was first announced at Google I/O earlier this year and is expected to begin rolling out to users sometime before the end of the year.
