Ending production of Chromecast

The 4K Chromecast "with Google TV" basically was that already, since it has the full-screen menu-based interface and remote. It seems a bit silly to me that they're tossing the brand aside but maybe they're doing that for exactly this reason.

the phone/browser lock-in is largely due to lack of a standardized and open protocol to stream content in this manner. in the wireless-display-sharing ecosystem the chromecast is unique in that, when possible, it streams content from the original provider on a local client rather than relying on mirroring your device's display. this gives a better user experience but required participation from each service provider.

i'm surprised netflix or amazon hasn't tried to create a standardized protocol for asking another client to initiate a stream from a provider on your behalf, including passing account credentials and allowing for widevine and other drm. if this was successful, it would open the market for chromecast-like-devices from other vendors.

Exactly -- it's not an end at all, just a rebranding.

And it's about time. "Chromecast" was always a terrible brand IMHO, because it had utterly nothing whatsoever to do with Chrome, except that there happened to be a "Cast..." menu item in Chrome. But you can cast from lots of apps that aren't Chrome. It would have made just as much sense to call it "Gmailcast" -- that is to say, no sense at all.

"Google TV Streamer" isn't particularly memorable, but it's perfectly logical and intuitive. And it doesn't introduce confusion with a browser. Google wants the brand to be Google directly, not some sub-brand. Makes sense to me.

Newer Chromecasts ship with a remote and do not require a phone. Multiple people can be logged in too.

It seems like the bare-bones experience of a Chromecast being is getting replaced with an Apple TV like experience.

Weird thing about this is the best thing about Chromecast is it’s not an Apple TV form factor and experience and the worst thing about Apple TV is it’s not a Chromecast style stick.

I just don’t see where a TV would even exist that doesn’t offer what’s in the box built in already, but I definitely know a lot of TVs where Chromecast or AirPlay just doesn’t work on the base unit.

Streamer is 3x more expensive vs Chromecast.

- $30 HD Chromecast https://www.amazon.com/Chromecast-Google-TV-Streaming-Entert...

- $99 ("just") Streamer https://store.google.com/product/google_tv_streamer

The ending allows them end support which is September 2027.

the original

FYI Google stopped pushing critical security updates to the 1st gen Chromecast already. I'm not saying it joined a botnet already but maybe~ https://support.google.com/product-documentation/answer/1023...

The decent solution to the remote-less Chromecast is to buy a super cheap android tablet to use as a remote.

I think you'd find that the vast majority of consumers have never heard of Chromecast.

I have no idea why they think that "full summaries, reviews and season-by-season breakdowns of content" is even a feature worth mentioning. The going value of that on the current market is $0. Heck, at times it's negative, you have to go out of your way to avoid the info if you don't want it. And there is no way whatsoever that this is happening locally. A $100 device is not spontaneously ingesting video, running speech-to-text on it or advanced video analysis, and processing it all down to a summary for you.

If this is what we can expect from "Gemini" technology, it's damning it with faint praise. Who even cares. Nobody has the problem of really wanting a summary of a season of TV, but they just can't get it because darn it all they lack access to super advanced AI. Nobody had that problem 10 years ago and they still don't. If I were them I'd scrub that off the marketing, it's a negative if it's anything.

an exceptionally well-liked and popular brand name

I don't think so at all. I'm not sure if anyone I know outside of tech has ever even heard of Chromecast. It was never super popular. While every single one of them knows what an Apple TV is, and they know what the Chrome browser is.

The replacement makes much more sense. It's just branded as Google, and what it does -- it's a TV streamer. The branding tells you that it's Google's version of an Apple TV, while "Chromecast" told you nothing except that maybe it had to do with a browser (which it didn't).

Chromecast was always a bizarre name to begin with, since it didn't really have anything to do with Chrome. Chrome wasn't necessary to use it, nor did it run Chrome for you.

My conspiracy theory is that renaming all products to generic names (Hangouts to Google Chat, G Suite to Google Workspace) are an attempt by Google to prevent regulators from splitting them out from the main company.

It's only a matter of time until Pixel gets renamed to "Google Phone".

remember this is Google -- don't worry, they'll be changing the name again in 2-3 years. Probably YouTubeCast or YouTube TV (yes they already have a "YouTube TV" but I wouldn't put it past them to combine/confuse the two things like they've done with Google Pay / GPay / Google Wallet / etc)

I find TV streamer to be an incredibly stupid name. Overall this is the kind of thing I would expect from Google.

"Premium" in general means "more expensive," right?

Or their internal fights / incentives to release new things instead of maintaining them.

The chat mess with Google Talk, Hangouts, Meet, Duo, etc. was quite sad to watch because Talk was a great product.

Twice the price with a chip from 2021.

https://www.androidauthority.com/google-tv-streamer-processo...

I think this can actually compete with, and might be better than, the nvidia shield pro. Since 2019, I don't think we've had such a device (last I checked).

The "best devices" lineup has been the nvidia shield pro, Roku ultra, and Apple tv 4k, with Roku being the cheapest at $99.

If you don't care about decoding support for all the different video formats, HDR10, dolby xy and z, etc., then these sorts of devices might not be for you.

Same thing + "AI"

We're going to be seeing a lot of this in the next year or two.

To be fair, isn't any new TV in the market being sold with chromecast support?

This seems like an unnecessarily cynical take. As a Chromecast user, both the price increase and the name change make sense to me.

The current generation Chromecast (Chromecast with Google TV (4K)) was fast and responsive when it launched, but software updates have made it almost unusually laggy over time. Obviously the best solution here would be “just make the software fast again”, but not all the relevant software is written by Google, and the third party apps need to be fast even if they are not well-optimized. The previous hardware wasn’t up to the task, and the dongle form factor makes thermals a challenge regardless of what chip you put in. A set top box format + more capable chip + the general trend in higher component costs = a higher BOM cost. I think Google has correctly judged that many consumers are willing to pay a higher cost for a more responsive device.

The name change just makes sense, because the previous name was terrible. “Google Chromecast with Google TV (4K)” is… a mouthful. The “Google Chromecast” branding is also associated with the “casting” UX flow that was the only way to interact with the first 3 generations of Chromecast devices. The majority of interaction with the current generation devices is probably through the remote (including the voice search feature on the remote). “Google TV Streamer” conveys the use case much more clearly.

I get as frustrated as anyone else when Google kills products I use, but this clearly isn’t a case of that. They’re just releasing a new generation with some changes that plausibly meet consumer demand a bit better than the old version.

More than twice. Chromecast is $30. The new TV streamer is $100.

"faster, more premium" == can't fit in a dongle form-factor anymore I guess

It's such a shame that so many bright minds waste their talents in what now is essentially an ad business.

For clarity: the discussion here is about the Chromecast hardware product, the little HDMI stick. Chromecast the protocol remains supported pervasively via Google and third party products (many/most TVs take it natively, for instance). It just didn't have a home, no one wants to buy something that's already pre-installed. Ours comes out once every few months on vacation, for example.

also just launched the "Google TV Streamer"

If Apple were run like Google, the iPhone would have been cancelled half a dozen times only to be resurrected as Apple Phone++ and Pocket AI, repeatedly investing in and torching brand awareness while distracting resources from product development to internal promotion and marketing the newest brand at the top of the escalator.

Can't have nice things indeed.

An alt: Apple AirPlay works super well even with Android tvs nowadays.

It's a bit clunky, but the only real solution is just "a computer" with an old Logitech K400 keyboard + mouse combo. You won't be "casting," (although I suppose you still could) rather you'll just be using the keyboard directly. This is low tech but also sort of "bomb proof." A company can't sweep the rug out from under you, your setup will always work, and given that it's literally just a computer running whatever OS you want, you can perform nearly any task with this device. You might complain "but my embedded [company] product does X." Yes, but that product will be dead in two years, and they'll keep making the UI worse, and injecting more ads. Your computer will just keep working, and changing only as much as you let it change.

I actually just bought a current gen Chromecast because I was looking for a "plug it in so I can watch YouTube on my TV" device similar to the Gen1 and was also dismayed at being forced to register/log in with a Google account and go through all of the hoops. I wish I had done more research and had I known that current Chromecasts are basically just a thin proxy of the exact same "Google TV OS" that ships on a lot of current smart TVs I would have paid the premium to buy a Nvidia Shield or something

I switched to iPhone, in part, because Chromecast's casting protocol was so unstable. It just... stopped working consistently. AirPlay seems to still work rather well, but it was substantially more expensive and doesn't really work with non-Apple devices (though the remote mostly alleviates this).

Idk, I think the real issue was it was probably "too complicated" for the average consumer. The type of person who is sitting at a TV probably wants something with a remote that behaves independent of their phone, not relies entirely on it for it to work. I love Chromecasts, but I can see why they're going away even if it makes me sad.

I’m pleasantly surprised by Apple Airplay. I can cast anything from my iPhone or iPad to my TV, they just need to be on the same WiFi.

The original Chromecast was really good at just letting you cast anything to a TV.

My experience was the opposite: my gen1 Chromecast's unreliable streaming is what made me get a Raspberry pi 3 :) IIRC the problem likely was the lack of support for 5Ghz WiFi combined with crowded channels in my area.

I think honestly the best solution really is to just use a stock PC and forget all of this crap. It's a shame there aren't any good open source setups using stock computers like Raspberry Pi that can act as a good Chromecast replacement (or if there are, I missed on it; I tried Kodi but while it is pretty cool it isn't really great for streaming services like YouTube in my opinion.) but on the other hand, it's not the end of the world.

Many modern TVs, if you can find one that isn't complete dogshit (good fucking luck), can do Miricast without connecting to the Internet or requiring an account. That's nice since it fills one role of Chromecast: the ability to easily cast your desktop.

But I'd like a full open source ecosystem implementing casting. Right now using Chromecast protocols from Firefox is a crapshoot and I just haven't bothered, but I don't think there's any reason why we can't just make our own. YouTube may be somewhat hostile, but at a certain point it's hard to stop a cast tool that just execs an official Google Chrome binary, you know? So there's always something that could be done.

That said, I keep a list of instructions for un-shittifying the Google Chromecast TV devices for myself, since I do have a few of them. Note that you already need to log in for this to really work, but I already do that, since I want to be logged into YouTube, for the time being (for Premium and age-restricted videos and subscriptions and etc.)

I'll just copy and paste them here:

    ## Replacing the Terrible Launcher
    Google took a dump all over the TV launcher with ads. Here is a workaround:
    1. Enable *Developer Mode* by tapping the TV OS Build Number in Settings -> About 7 times.
    2. Enable USB debugging.
    3. Prepare a device with `adb`. On NixOS, `nix shell nixpkgs#android-tools`.
    4. Find the IP in About -> Status and use it to do `adb connect [IP]`.
    5. Install an alternative launcher like ATV Launcher Pro.
    6. Disable the default launcher entirely. `adb shell "pm disable-user --user 0 com.google.android.apps.tv.launcherx && pm disable-user --user 0 com.google.android.tungsten.setupwraith"`
    ### Button Mapper
    Google also made their version of Android extra hostile to the launcher being replaced, so when you disable the launcher the Home and YouTube buttons will stop working. This can be fixed using a third party app called _Button Mapper_ available on Play Store.
    1. Install _Button Mapper_ from Play Store.
    2. Enable the Button Mapper Accessibility Service in Settings.
    3. Add the Buttons
    4. Map YouTube to open the YouTube app
    5. Map Netflix to open the Jellyfin app
    The app will warn about not working if the device sleeps, but this doesn't apply as these devices don't seem to "sleep" the way that Android phones and tablets do.

Still use my gen 1, the best 20$ spend in my life. I just have a annoying bug with youtube video that google won't fix.

I've had 2 Chromecasts of various vintage and an Nvidia Shield, and I've consistently run into stupid bugs and obvious failure modes the entire time. It's like it was a beta product rushed into production, then forgotten about when the project lost its executive champion.

But this is standard fare for Google these days. It's just not an organization that's structured to create AND sustain customer products. I no longer buy or invest in any customer-focused Google tech, and I try to avoid it on the Biz side where I can.

Maybe it is time to start a OpenCast project!

Why would they give you a 25$ device to stream video to your TV when they can sell you a shitty subscription to a shitty service for that amount every month, plus whatever they earn from plastering the whole thing with ads?

Fingers crossed Google doesn't deliberately kill support for these old devices in Android. For a very long time, I've used my gen 1 to watch local OTA sports broadcasts on my hotel room TV when I'm overseas. I accidentally bent the HDMI jack pretty badly one time, but it still works.

My first Chromecast was the current one, and I honestly don't get what the issue with it (except VLC streaming) and the wall wart which is kinda expected given the SoC power. I've logged in Google acc and every app acc exactly once a year ago and since then it just works autonomously. And I have all modern streaming, my local streaming from ISP and youtube in one place on any outdated TV which are present in all rentals here. That was the point of it, right? To add smart tv functionality to the old tv.

You did a great job summing up every Google product’s evolution over time.

I'll echo what other people are saying, that you should just not connect the smart tv to your wifi, but I am nervous about smart TVs that ship with cell chips to connect to the manufacturer's servers when people don't hook the device up to wifi.

I'm not sure how to determine which models do or don't ship with cell chips.

I love my TCL tv. It’s not “dumb” since it’s actually a “google tv” , but if you don’t connect it to the internet, you don’t have to deal with that. It only shows a notification when turned saying it has no internet, but it goes away on its own after a few seconds.

When I turn it on, it will automatically select the previous input, so I don’t have to interact with the “smart welcome screen” or whatever it’s called. It can even be turned on and off by my set top box which actually handles the media playback. I only need to reach for its remote to change the brightness. I think it’s supposed to have some kind of adaptive thing, but it doesn’t work since I’ve disabled everything that sounded like “camera” or “mic”.

It has 4 HDMI ports, dvb-t, dvb-s and can play things from usb. It also has optical audio out and can output audio to Bluetooth headphones.

Image quality and brightness are great for my needs. Audio is surprisingly good, so I can use a low volume without issue.

The model is 65c845 and cost me less than 1000€ new. My understanding from reviews is that the panel is pretty good, but that they skimped on the “smart” side, which was the right choice if you ask me.

We looked into this when moving house a few years ago in the UK. There didn't seem to be any viable options, so we bought a secondhand TV. I've heard that there are ways to get hold of shop display monitors but didn't figure out how to do this.

Any normal TV, just don't connect it to the internet. Use an external box like an Nvidia Shield or Apple TV, its remote will control on/off/volume on the TV via HDMI-CEC.

Now your cheap replaceable external box is the internet-connected computer and your expensive wall-mounted TV is an appliance.

Most "smart" TVs work perfectly fine as a dumb panel if you just don't give them internet access. And because they're sold expecting to get a bit of money back on ads, it's generally cheaper than a truly dumb panel of the same quality. I've got a Samsung QN90B and it has never once complained about not having internet access, and the UI is plenty responsive.

Getting an Amazon Firestick and putting Kodi on it is a great way to watch stuff locally if you have a NAS full of media

Otherwise, look at getting an Intel Compute Stick. They are full PCs that plug into an HDMI port. Running VLC on these is a pretty good solution

I've got an Iiyama 42" monitor running as a TV for AppleTV and an Xbox. Panel quality is a bit meh, I think it's some sort of weird 2k/4k thing done for dynamic range. It's a signage one, rather than a strict monitor, so there's a little bit of firmware, and I could put rotating pics on it using a usb key, but I'm using the apple-tv for it. No RF (which is good, means I don't have to pay for a tv license that I woudln't used), and 2 hdmi inputs.

This is gonna be me if or when my quite functional dumb LG from 2012 ever gives up the ghost. I just don't see the appeal of smart TVs when that functionality can be outsourced to a cheaper modular device.

Bought an LG “C” series OLED a month or so ago. Never gave it a WiFi password. Everything (Apple TV, XBox, Switch) uses HDMI CEC, so I just turn on the desired device, inputs are switched and devices powered on. I never see the TV’s Home Screen, and it doesn’t complain about lack of network. The LG acts as “dumb” as the truly dumb TV it replaced.

miracast is a decent standard. i'm not sure why we'd need chromecast's proprietary equivalent as well.

the fact that google dropped it from stock android kind of says it all - they clearly think that chromecast isn't good enough to compete without being coddled.

the market moved on from simple wireless display dongles.

Has it? Then it must have left me behind somewhere.

My Chromecast does 4K, Dolby Vision, runs Android TV, has a usable remote. What needs to change? There's no newer A/V standard available anyway! I literally couldn't think of anything else I'd want it to do.

(Google could, of course, and it's somehow "AI", even though that probably just runs in the cloud anyway?)

Fun fact: There was a guy who managed to extract the keys out of one of the earlier Chromecasts. He eventually stopped working on (or at least posting on XDA about) it because he was hired by Google.

There isn’t really any decent open casting protocol with adoption. DLNA (UPnP) is pretty well implemented in proprietary devices (besides uncontrollable latency up to 10s on Samsung TVs), but there are neither decent free receiver implementations nor many control options (other than that the concept isn’t bad).

Google Cast is smart (with its „we‘ll just give you a whole browser“ concept) and AirPlay works excellently well. Both are proprietary (guess I’m lucky to have both a Macbook and a Samsung TV).

The market didn't move on, the manufacturers found a better way to put ads in front of eyeballs.

Unfortunately no sign of Google Cast protocol being opened for general purpose use.

Matter Cast in theory exists, though afaik Amazon's the only big power really pushing it.

Unfortunately no sign of Google Cast protocol being opened for general purpose use.

Open Screen Protocol exists and is very similar. It works and you can use it today (via the one and only reference implementation in the Chromium source tree)!

It's even pretty good & makes sense!

This was kind of part of the bargain for adding Presentation API to the web back in 2014/2015. Your site can itself trigger Chromecast! If that's true, then it seemed clear there should be a standardized way to talk to devices too, otherwise this wasn't really much of a standard. The same front-side/back-side happened with Web Push API for web sites which lead to the creation of a Web Push Protocol backend for actually sending push messages to the browser. It's not perfect but so far the web has somewhat stayed honest with APIs for the page having implementable backend protocols too. Presentation API sample (which oddly cant find my Chromecasts?): https://googlechrome.github.io/samples/presentation-api/

I really really wish there was some hardware support for this! I've been meaning to set it up locally & start using it some. Writing a native client seems not too absurdly hard.

I agree with your second paragraph for a lot of reasons and product lines of theirs. But -- I decided a while ago to bite the bullet and go whole hog on using Google everything for my personal life (for better or worse).

The decision was either to avoid them entirely or resign and buy into the ecosystem. I have a Pixel, my home uses Nest, I use their cloud storage personally, their AI, etc.

FWIW it is a better experience than using only a few of their products in isolation. At what cost, we will find out. But I imagine Google Streamer will be useful for people like me, the user group Google is presumably trying to expand.

Apple makes fancy five-course dinners for the wealthy. Google throws half-cooked ramen at the wall for the masses. It's not terrible, but you have to finish eating it before it falls off. Your favorite flavor won't be there next time, and they might be serving burritos instead, but at least your loyalty card still works.

Ah, yes, Microsoft - the second largest company in the world - with a brand itself worth more than all but a handful of companies - is incoherent.

And Google, too.

It has Android TV, direct competitor to Apple TV.

Roku has always been pretty great -- simple, straightforward, limited UI clutter (source: have been a user since 2013). However, lately they've been adding more and more suggested/sponsored content to the home screen. Most of these things can be turned off, and even with them on, it doesn't slow down the experience significantly (I'm looking at you, Fire TV) but it is a shame. I suppose they've got to make money somehow...

Roku is just as creepy if not worse than Google. They do sell your data AFAIK, not just use it to deliver ads...

Roku has "Automatic Content Recognition (ACR)" which effectively uploads screenshots of what you're watching every few seconds: https://support.roku.com/en-ca/article/115005739288

Short of having an always on camera and microphone, this is amongst the scummiest corporate spying behavior out there.

Does it have the same level of content provider support, though?

Almost any app or content I've ever wanted to stream to my TV supports Google Cast on both iOS and Android, which definitely can't be said for my TV's native OS, Apple TV/Airplay, Miracast etc.

Roku does not work very well with airplay in my experience. Other than that, it's a good solution for the price.

I have both. I don't even know where the Chromecast is anymore.

I also have a smart TV, but the Roku has a lot of apps that the TV doesn't.

I think Sonos sued the heck out of Google for those, and it caused those devices to disappear for a few years. Sonos lost that case late last year though, so hopefully we'll see a resurgence?

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/google-wins-repriev...

Otherwise, you can DIY it with a bunch of old devices or Raspberry Pis and https://github.com/geekuillaume/soundsync

You can buy any of the google-enabled speakers, or you can just get some raspberry pi and run your own solution.

Check out wiim for hardware.

And also https://roon.app/en/ for music streaming software that can group up devices from a bunch of different manufacturers.

The awkwardly-named "WiiM Pro" is a device that claims to support Chromecast Audio (and a bunch of other stuff like Airplay and Spotify Connect). It's been getting good reviews but I haven't pulled the trigger yet.

Snapcast https://github.com/badaix/snapcast

Aww man, this sucks. I had mine connected to a google photos album. I loved that feature.

The only “google” thing in my home is a nest. That’s only because G acquired the company years back. Only thing they added was forcing users to migrate Nest account to G.

Honestly might disconnect the nest from the network. But only keep it connected and segmented from rest of network for remotely changing the temp from my phone.

One of these days I’ll “hack” (explore) the device so it doesn’t rely on Nest/Google APIs. There’s absolutely no reason why I need a Google auth token to access the Nest other than for Google to collect whatever data and feed to their beast

I have a Shield Pro, Onn and a Chromecast. All have Projectivity Launcher. Good bye Google ads.

Google TV does roughly the same thing. It's called "Ambient Mode"[1]. The default timeout takes a while though so I changed my timeout value to be much lower. It does feel like they're kind of hiding ambient mode though, which makes me think it's days are numbered, but on my current Google TV it works great. I set the timeout value very low so it will enter that mode after being idle for 60 seconds.

There may be a way to do it through the settings, but I enabled dev mode and used (wireless) adb to configure the timeout:

    adb shell settings put system screen_off_timeout 60000 

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/AndroidTV/comments/os2z6q/chromecas...

When it dies, google will be gone from my house.

In case you're looking, I have a friend with a set of special skills that can help with this. This friend is very discrete, and there will be nothing left that traces it back to you. It will look like natural causes. I think you can find an ad in the back of an issue of Solder of Fortune.

What difference does this announcement make to you? I am still using a 2013 Chromecast for some purposes. It does all the things it originally did, even though "support" for it ended a while back.

The rebranding makes sense, because I don't think people see it as "Google Chromecast", but simply "Chromecast" and not associating it with Google.

I suspect that being a dongle is part of the appeal of Chromecast for many people.

At least I definitely don't want more visible external boxes behind/next to my TV, especially if they don't even need line-of-sight to the remote since that's all Bluetooth anyway these days.

This feels more like they're actually killing this product, because the replacement is far too expensive.

So it will no longer appeal to market in the same way.

So I think this means that Google sees that there's not enough profit in the low end Internet Smart features for HDMI anymore.

What I wish for is for the ubiquitous Cast button found everywhere to be open and neutral and for there to be a whole market of devices that’ll work

Sonos, take note.

I am taking a look at the Nvidia shield, which also uses the cast button. I have 3 Chromecasts that need to be replaced, but the cheapest Shield is $150!!

I guess each time Google kills something and I remove one more part of my life from their ecosystem they are doing me the real favor.

my next step after my chrome cast stops working is going to be a raspberry pi connected directly to the projector.

With the rapid improvements in electronics, lasting a decade is quite an achievement.

I used a Chromecast for years until we slowly replaced all of the TVs with ones that have Roku built in. Having a remote is definitely better than needing to pickup your phone, switch over to the streaming app, wait for it to link up with the Chromecast, and then pause the video. The OG Chromecast definitely made sense for the time. Video encoding hardware capable of 1080p playback wasn't that cheap so fitting a bunch of extra processing power to run the various streaming apps seemed like extra effort when everyone already had a phone with the streaming apps installed. Roku was already in the business but their devices cost more money so Google came in at just the right time to establish themselves.

One of the first dates with my girlfriend, we were watching TV at her house via a laptop plugged in with an HDMI cord. I bought her a Chromecast the next day (I just got one too) and I think that may have secured my way into her heart.

I have the same experience. My Chromecast worked great until yesterday, when there was an update and now the remote just refuses to pair. Luckily I can use my phone as a remote, it's not as convenient as the actual remote, but it works.

I'd really like to stop updates when I get something that works, but alas, Google "cares about my security".

What I love about the Chromecast at the cabin is that people visiting can just cast whatever streaming service they're using from their phone. No installation, no login, no sharing users.

If instead it will become a more Apple Tv like experience where apps have to be installed and logged in to, it's just a hassle. I will have to log out to avoid guests staying using my subscriptions. A kid watching YouTube will wreak havoc on my suggestions etc.

So not a product I really want. It works well as it is.

I also picked up an onn device recently. It's a remarkably capable device, well worth the $20.

We use a Roku, which we found out yesterday supports AirPlay from an iPad. It's an old model though, not sure if the newer ones do.

Also interested. I run a self hosted jellyfin setup and it's really fun to visit someone's house that has a Chromecast, connect to wifi, hit the "cast" button in the jellyfin app, and play whatever content we want, including music. I'm sad that one day that easy UX will be gone in favor of needing to install the jellyfin app on someone's device, login, etc, which is the current UX for smart tv style devices.

That's been a joke for years: https://xkcd.com/1361/

Seen on Hacker News yesterday:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41164240

I chose React Native recently over Flutter for a new bunch of apps that I'm making. Go seems to be the only one which survives the terrible management of Google.

When we all wear AR goggles 24/7 and the traditional web is killed off in favor of ad infested "free" apps.

They are working on it.

I still do this all the time from my desktop PC with Chrome. As far as I'm aware you can cast any tab, or even your whole desktop.

It's still there afaik (on desktop Chrome): View > Cast...

The absolutely killer feature of the Chromecast is that I can have guests over (or be visiting someone), and anyone can stream any content they're authorized for. Movies I've bought can be watched anywhere there's a Chromecast; my buddy can come over and we can watch something together with his Paramount+ subscription. Keeping the accounts and authorization linked to personal devices, and letting the Chromecast essentially be a way to translate that to a bigger screen without having to actually stream it out of your pocket is fantastic.

They aren't getting rid of the Chromecast streaming. Google TV does both Chromecast and the Android interface.

The one difference is that Google TV runs the app for service if installed and streams with that. It is nice to use the remote when streaming instead of pulling out phone to pause or change volume.

Same. I was so sad when my old chromecast broke. And casting was basically the only thing that kept me on the chrome browser all these years. So perhaps its a good thing and this change will finally allow me to move to a more private browser.

I have yet to meet the smart TV I didn't want to throw out the window.

Nope. They just want to serve more ads directly to your TV.

We had this coming. Over the years, the various chromecasts in our house are slowly getting worse. I had the sense they are cutting costs on the software and servers powering these devices.

I can't imagine they will get better. It seems smart devices always crap out after a few years. I am regretting buying my Samsung TV last Fall because it's already slowing down. It takes 5 seconds to load the options menu.

Your Chromecast should still keep working. The replacement streamer device would still work too, or the last gen chromecast with google tv.

Apple TV also works if you have a Mac. Many TVs also have Chromecast built in. Miracast is another option but it's really terrible. Steam Link is another option. There are also wireless HDMI adapters.

Miracast devices have pretty decent compatibility. Some TVs have it built in, but there are dongles that implement it as well. IIRC Microsoft has (had?) one that worked quite well.

Snatch up some 4k chromecasts on eBay while they're still available

I didn't even know you could install apps onto a Chromecast. I'm not sure why you'd need to though, because phone apps can "cast" to it.

I also quickly ditched mine. I mean it worked sorta fine - but the usability was absolutely terrible. Often apps lost connection with it so any requests to pause or resume the media was several seconds delayed. If I got a phone call I often wanted a quick way to pause my media but chromecast made this super inconvenient, slow and stressful when the phone is blurting out it's ringtone. App support was also spotty at best. In the end I realized that since I've already chosen between a rock and a hard place (went with the Apple ecosystem), I could just screenshare using an old Apple TV. This ended up working much better in practice (although lower quality video stream) than Chromecast. Today I don't cast much video anymore for some reason, not really sure why. I have an Apple TV 4K and just mostly use the native apps from various services. Having a remote to a system that is completely detached from your phone is much nicer usability wise IMHO.

I think they have let Walmart's Onn tv box take over that segment. I have one and it works pretty well.

Yeah. At that price point, give me a reason not to buy Apple TV instead.

Updating apps on Google Play has become a nightmare compared to Apple, where review times can stretch to two weeks (sic).

What do you mean by "(sic)" here? I'm used to seeing that in quotes to make it clear the quote is being reproduced exactly, but I've never seen it outside a quote.

What does a protocol for casting need that UPnP/DLNA doesn't provide?

I find it funny that Google managed to sell you not one but two products in the same box that they unceremoniously discontinued. At least it looks like your Chromecast will continue to work for a while.

We do.

https://www.dial-multiscreen.org/dial/protocol-specification

This is a widely supported standard by the WiFi Alliance: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracast

I speculate that they give them a trial period to prove runaway success, and when it invariably does not meet their unreasonably high demands (of being 'Google scale'), they focus on something else and leave the products on auto-pilot using minimal resources.

What perverse incentives do they have to slowly and steadily make them worse than they were out of the box?

Its Google, so almost certainly advertising related tracking (and the associated bloat)

Hang on to it.

Google inexplicably killed the Chromecast Audio as well, and it was an absolutely perfect device for a very particular niche (streaming audio to an old stereo/amplifier without needing a permanently connected phone as is the case for Bluetooth).

I hope mine still lasts for a long time (I believe there are some Google-signed certs on it that might expire some day?).

Makes perfect sense in Google's company culture. Reinvent the wheel and plaster your own name on it to get the promotion...

I wonder how they'll fuck it up.

They fucked up the price at $99.

I have 5 Chromecast with Android TV around my house, I paid about $30 for each one. There's no way I'm going to buy 5 of these new devices at a $100 price.

I’m not following how this reputation would help initial adoption. Isn’t that reputation a big component of why Stadia failed?

Critically, the replacement, here, is 3x more expensive vs https://www.amazon.com/Chromecast-Google-TV-Streaming-Entert...

I found that using infuse I got what i needed for streaming from the NAS and the kids enjoy apple arcade so it does the job at a decent price.

Except that means that you'll have to hook the TV up to the internet instead of just connecting a dongle to it (which means the TV may spy on you and/or display ads), and when they inevitably stop supporting it you'd have to replace the whole TV instead of just a dongle.

At least there still is a separate device you can hook up, at least for now, though it's more expensive, clunkier, and packed with a bunch of needless stuff.

The product page on the Google Store[1] calls out “Enjoy content from compatible apps on your phone, tablet, or laptop and cast right to your TV.”, so it seems clear that it will still support the Cast protocol.

This is the least suitable market for AI that I can think of. People love writing summaries for TV shows and movies. They do it for free. Why not focus on making AI do jobs that humans don't like.

I also don't think people actually long for having the machine recommend new movies and shows. At least I get enough of that from my human friends and family. ("Have you seen game of thrones? You have to watch game of thrones")

Blog is working again. I got the 500 error for a couple of minutes.

I expose my home assistant entities to Home so that I get voice commands using their speakers.

Stuff that you install in your house is generally expected to last a long time. Imagine centering your home around Google and having them unceremoniously kill it. I'm glad a vendor neutral open source project like Home Assistant exists.

Edit: apparently some form of this already happened with their alarm system. The $400 paperweight comment in this article hits hard -- shame on them for creating so much e-waste -- https://www.cnet.com/home/security/googles-nest-secure-has-f...

We have 5 Chromecasts with Android TV and they all work perfectly. We really only use Plex, Youtube, Netflix and a few other streaming apps, but none of them has any problems. It sounds like your problems with Chromecast are due to the rest of your network infrastructure and not the Chromecast.

And seemingly stupid price given that for $213 https://www.walmart.com/ip/TCL-43-Class-S-Class-4K-UHD-HDR-L... one can purchase a 43" TV with Google TV smart features from TCL, a respectable brand, obviating the need for "streamer" entirely.

As someone who ran their plex server on the shield for a year, don't plan on keeping it there if you want get serious with it and/or want to open up it up to external users. As your library grows, it will start to struggle and I had to rebuild my library two or three times.

A $100 SFF or micro computer off ebay with an 8th+ gen intel cpu will serve as a much better plex server, with plenty of room for other things like HomeAssistant etc. The iGPU will do 15-20+ simultaneous 1080p transcodes, and my machine idles at around 10w. The shield can serve up 1 or 2.

The shield pro is hard to beat as a plex client, though.

apparently doesn't support DTS audio which means can't replace the 10 year old nvidia shield TV Pro

Yeah.

Disingenuous of G to frame it as "WE SOLVED THIS" since they now are KILLING their solution.

Offering basically a wall-connected laptop, with no kbd, instead.

Yes -- it is very difficult to get a customer to pay for "AI summaries" for movies/shows especially if they are not bundled with anything else. I tried it about 6 months ago at recapflix.com (it's not perfect and we got 1 paying customer over like 3 months haha).

And the only reason they care about search is it's what drives their advertising, which is their primary product.

We have 5 Chromecasts with Android Tv around the house, and we don't have any of the problems you describe - no 2-3 minute wake-up, it's pretty much instant on all of them. No ads, we use "apps only mode". The remote is just fine, your hands may be the problem. Media playback never crashes.

That said, I'm not paying $100 for the same experience I recently paid $30 for. I'm going to test on the Onn 4k streaming device for $20.

Answer this yourself, by saying out loud, "Hey Google, i need help". ...