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Comment by jnwatson | Hacker News Reader

Congrats for halfway implementing a $30 Chromecast?

Why hack, play, learn and do something for fun, and take the time to write about it when one can pay 30 bucks for the thing and be done?

Personally, I don't have much interest in doing anything DIY if I can just buy something inexpensively that does the same job at least as well as whatever I'd build. If I'm going to build something, I want it to be unique somehow: to do that job better than the off-the-shelf solution, or add a useful feature I can't get by buying, for instance.

I don't know enough about the subject of this particular article to say if this is the case here, but personally I think doing something that's a poorer version of a cheaper off-the-shelf solution is a bit of a waste of time, but if they're doing something different, that's really interesting to me.

RIP to chromecast audio, still my favourite way to make speakers go.

Can anyone recommend an alternative? My Marantz receiver is great - but the AirPlay drops all the time.

i've heard good things about the wiim, but $200 is a lot more than $30

Do you know by any chance if wiim is capable of streaming music independently, without relying on a separate computer? I.e. my smart Denon speaker can stream Spotify, so if I start playing on my laptop through that speaker and then close the laptop, streaming continues. I don't have to keep my laptop running. This doesn't work for Apple Music and I am looking for a device that can stream Apple Music without an additional computer.

Maybe a regular Chromecast plugged into an HDMI audio extractor? They are super cheap on Amazon [0] though if using analog audio it might be worth trying a few to compare sound quality; optical should be perfect quality.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BKV9GH99/

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