The Google Pixel Tablet's ill-conceived charging dock might be its worst feature

Talyor Kerns writing for Android Police

What’s more, when the tablet isn’t attached, the dock doesn’t do anything. On its own, it can’t take Google Assistant commands or play audio — all that is handled by the tablet. At the very least, Google should give the dock the electronics to put it on par functionally with something like a Nest Mini.

I think this is the reason why the dock doesn’t make sense to me. If it did something when the tablet wasn’t docked, I might understand it a bit more.

But even then, imagine using this in Hub Mode, and family members coming to depend on it for controlling devices in the home. When the tablet is taken off the dock and is in use by someone else, that would be jarring, or down right frustrating. That could have been offset a bit if you could say “Hey Google” to it and still control smart home devices, but that isn’t the case.