Google TV’s second wind: New devices coming from LG, Samsung, Vizio and Sony

As expected, Google TV will get a big shot in the arm at next week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

LG, Vizio, and Sony will be announcing new Google TV devices at CES, while Samsung will announce its products later in the year, the company announced on the Google TV blog Thursday.

The new devices come on the heels of the Google TV 2.0 launch this past fall, which added apps, a refined interface and Android 3.0 to the platform. Google says that GTV activations have doubled since the update’s launch, and things will only pick up with new devices on the horizon.

Full details about the GTV devices will be announced next week, but this is what we know so far: LG is implementing Google TV in a new line of TV sets running its custom L9 chipset. Google was less precise about what Sony, Samsung and Vizio are up to, but I’d imagine the software is landing in TV sets rather than set-top boxes. (Though Sony may still announce some sort of revision to its Google TV Blu-ray player.)

In addition to Google’s recent partnership with Marvell for Google TV chipsets, the company is also tapping Taiwanese chipset designer MediaTek. The new chipsets means that next-gen GTV devices will be faster and sport 3D capabilities, and it also gives GTV device makers plenty more choice when developing products.

With an impressive list of new partners, this year is already off to a much better start for Google TV than 2011. In its first year, the platform suffered from poor sales, and it was served a black eye when Logitech publicly dumped it, claiming that Google TV caused it to lose over $100 million in operating profit. That also led to Logitech’s CEO stepping down.

Somehow I don’t think you’ll see Logitech at Google’s celebratory GTV mixers this year.