Rumor: Chromebooks are getting a feature to view the screen of Pixel phones

Chrome OS may get a feature to display the screen of Pixel phones. This allows users to view their screen on Chromebooks. That is a feature in the Phone Hub software in the OS, according to code that 9to5Google discovered.

The feature is in Phone Hub, an expected feature to come in Chrome OS. Google has been working on that since last year. Phone Hub is a way to make Chrome OS work better with Android phones, for example by showing mobile notifications on a laptop or computer or to synchronize tabs. 9to5Google writes that code in Chromium now indicates that screen mirroring may also be in the operating system. A new flag in chrome://flags contains a piece of code that describes Eche App System Web App. According to 9to5Google, that code is used to stream images via WebRTC.

The site says that the function is probably not only used to put notifications on an external display, but also to be able to broadcast video streams and see on another screen. The function is called when a user clicks on a notification.

The feature would only be available on Pixel phones. Inside the Chromium code is another piece of JavaScript that references the feature, but only for Google’s own phones. It is not yet known whether the feature will definitely be available; according to 9to5Google, that is far from certain. It is also not known when Phone Hub will be ready for final use.