Google literally dangles its new dongle in front of gasping TV audiences Google has redesigned its $35 Chromecast TV dongle, and come up with the Chromecast Audio – a new gizmo that streams music over Wi-Fi to speakers. Chromecast Small dangle dongle for streaming Two years ago, Google launched the Chromecast, which looks like a fat USB stick, plugs directly into a TV's HDMI socket, and streams …
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I have two HDMI on my TV.
But I just bought a £5 gadget off Amazon and whatever one was newest turned on, it will automatically switch to.
I was originally going to post about the stupid design, but this is relevant also - the switch I use and my current ChromeCast, along with various other HDMI-gadgets are all in a cupboard out of sight. Because everyone has a different opinion on what colour black, and what colour cable, and what shape (square, rounded, edgey, odd, etc.) and I disagree with almost all of them.
So all that's on-show for me is a large rectangular black screen with nothing else on it. That's it. All the gadgetry is in a cupboard out of sight. And yet I can ChromeCast, switch between cable, Freeview and satellite (even Italian satellite), join my laptop, the Wii, etc. etc. etc.
The Chromecast is particularly nice in that I power it from the USB cable supplied from the TV itself so that when the TV turns on (and only when the TV turns on) does the Chromecast start up. Saves a lot of those precious 2.4GHz airwaves when I'm not using it but I never have to remember to turn it on.
I've ordered the new Chromecast for several reasons a) it's cheap and I get a lot of use out of it, b) the new one can finally use 5GHz channels (amazing how quiet they are compared to 2.4GHz in my area), c) no matter what stupid design (because even the old one looks daft with the USB on the opposite side of the HDMI), I don't see it, d) it does that nice backgroundy thing which is good at parties when your music runs out and the evening slows.
"Like an Amazon FireTV Stick?"
I bought one of those when they were on offer, and yes, unless you buy into the whole Amazon ecosystem they are a bit 'Yawn'.
Until you side-load Kodi (XBMC) onto it, then you've got a very small fully functional wireless media tank hidden away behind your TV for £20. I don't think Amazon will be too happy about it though...
That;s the thing though. It filled a niche that I didn't know I had. I paid for prime purely for the delivery service. 80 quid a year for next day delivery and drop off/delivery to a Collect+ point made it worth paying for. A single Collect+ delivery to my local corner shop is £3.50 and next day delivery was an extra fee on top of that too. Prime video was a nice little extra but not a deal breaker by any means.
Then along comes the offer of buying a FireTV Stick for £19 so I bought one as a toy, if it turned out to be a bit shit it only cost me peanuts anyway. First thing to do, install agk fire, Fire Starter, popcorn time, Mobdro and kodi on my android handset and sideload them straight onto the FireTV using its IP address on the local WiFi LAN. The Amazon Fire app lets me use my mobile handset as a keyboard to set everything up. After that the remote control wand that comes in the box with the Firestick makes the whole thing function as a prefectly good HD media device.
Well, I took the risk on a chromecast after all the hype, and found it to be very wanting. They're just another walled garden manufacturer with nothing game-changing. Only they're doing it cheaper and without a radio service launched by Sir Elton John, or whatever happened, because I didn't listen to that either.
At this time in our technological cycle, we should be getting far more flexible, powerful and helpful equipment ... and far more open, especially from a company that founded itself as being on the side of the punter against "the man"
This is just going to be another over-hyped piece of tat that forces me to use Chrome as my browser of choice on my PC. Screw that.
You're doing something wrong then son, as we have Chromecasts on four TVs and the chromecast app on Windows and Android and nothing forces us to use any specific browser.
In fact, the Chromecast is about the easiest, most unintrusive technology to use.
It does exactly what it says on the tin, nothing more, nothing less, and it just works, and I like that.
Much as I hate the Google monster, I can't criticise Chromecast.
Yes, I have used chrome to cast exactly once since I got a Chromecast last year and I've used my Chromecast most days. It's a Netflix and iPlayer stick for me.
Sometimes I cast my tablet screen (because the flickr app doesn't cast), but generally it just makes my dumb panel Bravia from before the dawn of time smart enough for a bit of Stargate or University Challenge on demand.
> At this time in our technological cycle, we should be getting ... and far more open
Did you miss the memo ? Open is so 20th Century, these days it's all about closed systems and walled gardens.
> They're just another walled garden manufacturer ...
But like the others, they are vying to be THE walled garden !
All these companies are doing their best to make it so that the user experience is great if you use nothing but their kit, and horrible if you try and introduce anything "not theirs" into the mix.
Google is all about getting you locked into their walled garden. Amazon is all about getting you locked into their walled garden. Apple is all about getting you locked into their walled garden. And so on.
If anyone of them looks like they are doing something open and/or altruistic ... then look for the knife in the other hand :-(
Stop buying cheap junk TV's and dangling heavy stuff off them on highly-tensed cables. There is no design solution for such a thing that you would ever want to afford.
I run a 2m HDMI cable to the cupboard in which all the junk sits - supported by gravity and an invention called a "shelf" - so that the strain on the TV ports is zero, and the strain on the device ports is zero, and the strain on the cables is the weight of the cable itself. Hell, I even use cheap right-angle HDMI connectors on the TV because some bright-spark thought it was a good idea to hide HDMI at the rear in a tiny recess so all the cables poke out the back of their "ultra-thin" TV rather than plug in on a recess on the side that you could hide enough to not have anything visibly coming out the side of the TV. It gets in the way of the mounting bracket, so I had to use right-angles.
And my mounting bracket? It swings 1m from the wall, in any direction, facing any way because the only thing "stopping" it is one 2m HDMI cable that goes less than 0.5m to the cupboard.
"I'd be interested in the Chromecast Audio if it did multiroom streaming."
My thoughts exactly. From what I've read elsewhere, it doesn't support it at the moment, but will do at some point in the future (i.e. has the hardware capability to do so.)
So I guess it's wait and see for now.
Ok, nice article but this remark is just ridiculous
"Power comes from a USB connection, oddly a USB 2 port given that the rest of Google's Nexus and Pixel line announced at the same time use USB Type-C connectors."
Since when does a television have usb-c connectors, its pretty obvious they need to put a normal usb connector.
Maybe in the future in the 4th generation of the Chromecast and even then you would need backwards compatibility, so just a adapter to usb-c will do fine then as well.
If the Chromecast Audio can take the place of my mothballed Linksys Wireless Music Bridge, which allowed me to stream from my Windows laptop to my stereo, it will be the answer to my prayers. Whatever I could play on the laptop, I could listen to on the stereo; codecs and formats didn't matter. What I can't quite figure out is if I can only stream cloudy media to it, or if I can use my local music library played through WMP or VLC.
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