Moments in Chromecast's history
blog.google
blog.google
I have had two Chromecasts (the original and an Ultra) and I feel like both were hampered by the phone requirement. Part of this is my house having kids without phone who would have liked to have access to Netflix, and part is due to my Apple TV use, which I use far more often.
I'm sure there will be some loss of functionality here, but hopefully it's with the benefit of a much better user experience.
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.
This is through standardized protocols.
Amazon is pushing Matter Cast, which is in many ways superior to Google Cast, most of all by being open. Its biggest downside is that it's not supported by anyone else.
Didn't Chromecasts work with DIAL which was an open protocol?
https://www.dial-multiscreen.org/dial/protocol-specification
The DIAL spec documents spend three pages talking about discovery and sixteen pages talking about state tracking, launching, HDMI-CEC, etc.
It's a pretty basic protocol spec since it mostly relies on things like UPnP for discovery and HTTP REST so a lot of complications are already defined in other specs.
Matter Cast has what to me are grevious limitations:
1. Connecting clients can only talk to existing Endpoints running on the target device. If I use Tidal for example, the smart speaker or smart TV needs to already be setup with that app, and needs to be willing to let a background service run & register itself with the platform. https://github.com/project-chip/connectedhomeip/blob/master/...
2. Only native apps are supported. There's no protocol to say open a webpage & control that. As a solo dev I can throw together a universal Presentation API multi-display experience in hours. Shipping even one native app would take many weekends & lots of legal hoops. Getting on the apps store for even 50% of TV's or speakers seems daunting beyond imagining.
3. No support for multi-party sessions. Only one user can interact at a time.
4. No support for the Web's Presentation API. Since it's not based around urls & web pages, it would require lots of additional work to make it support the standard web pages have to spawn a remote display.
By compare, Open Screen Protocol lets any target device open any web page, which is very similar to how Chromecast development works today (and how DIAL worked before). Whether the target device is Android, Apple, WebOS, Windows, Tizen, or other, the expectation that I could Open Screen Protocol cast to it remains the same. Where-as Matter Cast requires a native app on the device & the app has to be installed & potentially even greenlit by the target device platform itself.
OpenScreenProtocol really looks to have it all, & the model is so much more universal. Really wish we saw some device makers pushing for it these days.
I feel like the thing you are describing as lock-in is, in a critical sense, quite the opposite. It gave you the power to make a dumb TV into a versatile streaming system that's not locked down and beholden to Smart TV software.
AirPlay has the same capabilities, I believe even in the original v1 version - back then only for Audio as it didn’t support video at all.
Now that they are at risk of being split up for their monopoly, and as they lose an Antitrust case for their search monopoly, they are probably looking to kill off the Chrome brand because Chrome is how they entirely dominated the web, warping it to their standards and killing more open standards in favor of their Proprietary technology.
Arguably the biggest advantage of Chromecast was just not having to deal with all that.
Google TV is a better "brand", IMO.
why didnt they just go for "Google TV" (2 words)
they also could have played a bit "Google TOP" (because its a table top device) , "Google S" (S for Streamer) , i think the 3 word "Google TV Streamer" , is function over form gone wrong
That's a whole headache I think Google is (wisely) trying to avoid here...
"Chromecast" was more puzzling. What's "Chrome"? Isn't that a browser? What does this have to do with anything? And what is "cast"? Does it broadcast something? Etc.
It'd be like if Apple decided to rebrand Macbook to be "Apple Laptop". Sure, it's accurate. It's also crap.
I think they gave out one from Logitech (with a keyboard!) at an I/O one year.
You get used to it. They also called the Apple smartwatch "Apple Watch" from the beginning, and nobody is complaining. So "Apple Laptop" or "Apple Phone" would be just as good.
The only market who wouldn't know is the same crowd that would never use a smart TV anyway.
Does it immediately tell you absolutely everything you likely need to know if you're not already buying an Apple TV? Yes.
I'd call it "Google TV Box" though. Streaming is too contrived and not everyone knows what it means. Xiaomi use the Box naming too and that seems to go down well.
The reason Google TV didn't win (and the reason why it kind of did) is that Google TV already won for something else closely related, which this is being associated with:
https://store.google.com/us/product/chromecast_google_tv
(If not, then: What am I missing?)
*enough profit
Remember that Google has sunset many products because those profits pale in comparison to search and advertising.
People just want to watch Netflix or Disney with minimum friction. A box that is twice the price of the competition, with questionably useful AI features does not seem a winning play.
This is a problem for the next exec after the one behind this has happily parachuted to his next position before the chickens come home to roost on things like "long-term costs" and "fit with the overarching corporate strategy".
The same way Roku does not make a profit from them.
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/ROKU/roku/profit-m...
It was a device that made it possible to cast video from your Chrome browser. When it was released in 2013 it reinforced the superior utility of Chrome which had just began to dominate browser market share.
Embedding the Google Cast protocol directly into video streaming apps and having the Chromecast brand name coexist alongside the Android TV and Google TV brand names made things confusing.
Now they are just killing the Chromecast branding for now. But they've been known to kill a brand only to resurrect it a few years later.
Most impotantly, it has ads!
Also now I have to pay extra to skip ads on prime :(
I'm thinking of getting an Apple TV but considering how expensive it is I'm waiting for the next version. I don't want to pay top dollar for the 2022 version.
But for whatever reason when I plug in the 4K with Google it's the annoying nagbot that refuses to do anything unless I'm logged in (not to mention my password is not exactly easy to type using the remote) and then it drags in my whole YouTube history and the device is useless and nags you to hell when not logged in.
It's so much easier and less insane to just use Roku. I can throw YouTube videos at the Roku without being logged in and the device works just fine. Google seems to be constantly changing things and I have no interest in playing wack-a-mole with whatever thing they decide to change this week.
Roku's just work and they rarely change. That trust just does not exist with Google's products.
The prompt to login whenever you cast to an arbitrary TV feels like a footgun. I don't want whatever community I'm watching with to know what the algorithm thinks I like. The distance between "annoying" and "embarrassing" is directly correlated to who is in the room to observe.
The latest one in my bunch has a remote and menus and stuff, and is what I presume y'all are talking about. I've seen it referred to as CCWGTV.
"Privacy" seems easy-enough and is not so dissimilar to "privacy" on any other shared computer: Just set up profiles. One for you, one or more for kids, one for guests, or whatever makes sense.
For your own profile, set a PIN. (The included d-pad remote makes PIN entry easy-enough.)
Aaaand... done?
Mine also does old-school phone-driven Chromecast stuff just fine with zero profiles logged in -- while it is just sitting there at the profile-select screen. In this mode, it accepts Youtube and Spotify and whatever else I throw at it.
---
Am I doing something wrong?
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.
It's not at all clear to users though, isn't a meaningful name. And now as well as web there are also Android Custom Receivers from Chromecast. https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/web_receiver/basic https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/android_tv_receiver/...
It would have been interesting if there was an alternate path where Chromecast really did expose its underlying browser-ness better. If I could just tell my phone to cast hacker news and then scroll on my phone's screen. I wonder if that was ever considered.
Also note that ChromeOS was also a web-centered thing at the time, so there was some symbiosis with that. Both web powered tech platforms. But given the recent announcement that Google is killing ChromeOS & Android is the way forward for everyone, well, extra sensible that Chromecast has to go: finalizing/cementing the (imo unfortunate for all) cultural victory of Android-over-all at Google.
I get the lamentation of the final nail in the coffin of what was just a simple wireless HDMI dongle, and I agree that there's a real need for that. Having said that, I love my 4K Google TV Chromecasts. All I'd ever wanted was something that combined the Fire TV Stick and the Chromecast into one device, and this delivered perfectly. The compact form factor makes it easy to keep a spare in my backpack for whenever I might need it while away from home, which comes in handy often.
My problem with this is that it sounds like they're discontinuing a product that works perfectly well, and replacing it with something slightly worse (for my use case) at 2x the price. Granted, for now they are still selling the Chromecast, so they have time to introduce a future "Google TV Streamer Mini" that retains the form factor of the Chromecast. As long as they do that, I don't really care what they call it.
I bought a Chromecast thinking it could play videos from a network drive like XBMP, but it couldn't and I thought it was beyond useless with its buggy and slow interface.
You plugged it in once to what used to be dumb TV's and in 2-3 presses I can have whatever was on my phone on my TV, with no fanagling with a USB to HDMI dongle into an HDMI cable, which may phone may or may not even support.
And once it was playing you didn't really have to manage the connection for Youtube; Your phone could die and it'll still play since it's ultimately not actually extracting the content from your phone's network.
> I thought it was beyond useless with its buggy and slow interface.
The older Chromecasts' didn't really have an interface once you set it up. I just casted from phone, waited 5 seconds and it was done. Honestly prefer my Ultra to the newer Google TV dongles precisely because there's no unnecesary middleman interface. My phone should and did manage all of that.
Now that every TV has apps and even the older people watch more streaming than cable TV, sure, it is a good moment to say goodbye to the mental image of what Chromecast was. But if you measure success in tech by how many people outside of the “HN crowd” are familiar with a thing, Chromecast is right up there with something like Dropbox.
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...
- $30 HD Chromecast https://www.amazon.com/Chromecast-Google-TV-Streaming-Entert...
- $99 ("just") Streamer https://store.google.com/product/google_tv_streamer
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.
If you want a modern TV with correct colours, HDR, and useful inputs, you have to stop yourself from connecting a smart TV to the internet. There's just no other way. Roku's OS is absolutely usable without ever configuring it for internet access, and my particular brand of choice, TCL, offers an option to update the OS with a USB stick.
I use my TV with an AV receiver, and HDMI-CEC switching means the TV remote is literally hidden away. The TV has no say in what's happening to it at all.
My mother who hates every piece of technology and gets frustrated to the point of tears when things don't work like they did yesterday was just fine with a Chromecast. There's no separate Chromecast to learn, manage, or deal with. It's, effectively, a way to mirror your phone to your TV.
I regularly recommended them to people even with Smart TVs and stuff. There were often bugs, UI issues, general confusion... "Just plug this thing in and then use your phone as a remote" added a lot of value.
I don't know why I'd ever want a "Google TV". For $100 what does this give me over the crappy Smart TV UI I've already got? Do I really want to deal with Google's privacy track record over Apple's to save $40?
I rarely was. Ultiamately I usually have some piece of tech on hand and I just wanted some way to get youtube on my dumb TV.
But I also get it. that tv casting has more or less been built into every modern smart TV (and we aren't getting many good dumb tv's these days). So focusing on something more robust instead of selling a cheap streaming stick seems inevitable.
If anyone suggests a better title (i.e. more accurate and neutral, preferably using representative language from the article), we can change it again.
Targeted use vs constant home inhabitants monitoring.
The replacement ("Google TV streamer") seems to be a quite different device – most importantly, one that will be very visible next to a TV, and not out of sight behind it like its predecessor.
For anyone not particularly interested in having "AI" in their streaming stick (and this being Google, surely that will just happen in the cloud...?), I'm not sure if that's an improvement.
> one that will be very visible next to a TV, and not out of sight behind it like its predecessor.
You're now advertising to anyone who visits your home.
But those that have at least subjectively/anecdotally seem pretty happy with it – so why kill it and start from scratch?
I'm actually a big proponent of moving TV smarts out of the display just as I am in cars.
"Cast" is a pretty ubiquitous term and, anecdotally, Chromecast is almost always the device I find when traveling.
Probably selection bias on my part, but I'd expect most people to be aware of Chromecast unless they're over the age of ~70 and fully Apple-oriented.
Seems like throwing away a perfectly well known brand.
What's frustrating in this thread is how many people are conflating the weird dongle product with the extremely successful streaming control protocol. Only the weird thing is being cancelled!
Chromecast first gen was in 2013.
Apple actually beat Google on this one in terms of time.
Come on man
Practically, this means that you can take phone calls, hibernate your computer, kill a source app on your phone, leave the house entirely etc. with Chromecast without interrupting whatever's playing on a TV or stereo, while with Airplay, playback usually stops in these scenarios. Airplay is also a bigger battery drain as a result, in my experience.
They both support AirPlay these days, I've never been able to use Google Cast natively with a TV here, which is a shame for my use cases (Netflix doesn't support it, and I generally don't like to have my phone connected to the TV via Wi-Fi for the entire duration of a movie).
Edit: Turns out LG is currently in the process of adding it, and Samsung seems to have support in some models as well, but it's definitely not ubiquitous.
I ask because when I have travelled for work, it's the corporate hotels that have often baked a Chromecast into their TV experience, even to the point of sorting out their wifi network so you're only able to cast to the screen in your room. Their splash screen offers "live TV" or the option to "stream from your phone".
They often don't shout about the fact that it's a chromecast doing the work, but the telltale standby screen that shows up when you're not casting something normally confirms it.
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.
You're clearly underestimating the 2021 SoC in it. It does 20 GFLOPS!
If I can get a movie summary from a real intelligence for free online, why would I bother with an AI generated summary?
It's here: recapflix.com (and it's not at all perfect, due to a number of reasons...).
It was actually useful in the rare case that you wana skip an episode or get caught up on some obscure anime/show, but otherwise, meh.
Who even needs this crap? Just watch the goddamn show, people.
It's only a matter of time until Pixel gets renamed to "Google Phone".
gPhone.
Edit: to clarify, since somebody downvoted me, I'm just saying it's funny that they refactored all their properties into multiple legal entities and now several years later might want to do the opposite. You can't expect consistent behavior from these companies over time.
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.
I finally replaced it about a month ago with an onn streaming box from Walmart for about 20 bucks--less than I paid for the original Chromecast a decade ago:
https://www.walmart.com/ip/onn-Google-TV-4K-Streaming-Box-Ne...
Works great, and still has Chromecast support. Most of the stuff I used to cast can be handled by Google TV having equivalent Android apps now, but I still like casting my local music from my phone to the TV when I'm reading. There's a $50 4K version out now, as well, if you have a higher resolution TV, but the TV I had the Chromecast plugged into caps out at 1080P, so, no need.
I'd really like to stop updates when I get something that works, but alas, Google "cares about my security".
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 would always unlock my phone, and simply swipe down and use the media controls in the Android drawer, didn't really need all the steps in between. Heck, you should have been able to press play/next from your lock screen unless you blocked that specifically.
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.
Google TV and this new device displays advertisements, store, and more. I hate it.
It's the last google thing in my house. When it dies, google will be gone from my house.
None contains ads. If I leave it alone it will switch to Screensaver in a few minutes. Photos in my case. Bit sad they have hidden 3rd party screens savers, which were better, but there definitely isn't anything I can call "constant ads".
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...
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
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.
There was a setting to toggle. They tried to make it unattractive by saying I wouldn't be able to use the Google Assistant feature but this just seemed like a win for me.
I don't need my TV to be fancy, it just needs to accept signal from my consoles and HTPC.
I do kinda miss seeing all the suggested dogshit movies sometimes tho XD
Not that much of a shock here, the market moved on from simple wireless display dongles.
Unfortunately no sign of Google Cast protocol being opened for general purpose use. Would be great to be able to run your own custom Receiver-device without needing a Google certificate...
Matter Cast in theory exists, though afaik Amazon's the only big power really pushing it.
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.
Cast and Airplay makes the device itself fetch and play content, with local control and importantly much better display and video manage.
(AirPlay and Cast both support screen sharing, but that is not the main use case.)
I also DGAF about battery life. If im watching TV, I have power nearby and im not moving anywhere. Id be charging my phone anyway.
With one solution, you get good quality playback (including anti-judder from your TV), correct color handling (e.g., 10-bit, HDR, Dolby Vision, whatever), HDMI CEC volume control from the “source” device, and remote control support on the TV.
With the other, you get recompressed content at random source resolution with improper frame pacing (TV cannot so anti-judder of a re-compressed 3:2 pulldown source), poor AV sync, a color space likely crushed to 8-bit with incorrect gamma, no integration and a device that is throwing its battery out the window - even if you don’t feel like you need your battery, Miracast still has no redeeming qualities for this usecase.
Miracast is great for presentations and other scenarios that strictly need screen mirroring though.
The beauty of the Google Cast protocol is that you can hand over meta-data as well as the actual source-URL to the receiver and it can initiate the stream directly.
> 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.
Google had a basic implementation in AOSP to kickstart things, but when being deployed to the market it turned out to be too cumbersome and complicated:
1. Each vendor had to certify his device for Miracast implementation with the Wi-Fi Alliance.
2. The Miracast receiver (sink) was buggy in many TV-sets and often didn't even work well with devices from the same vendor (i.e. Samsung Galaxy with Samsung TV)
3. Mobile Chipset vendors (Qualcomm, Mediatek) started to provide their own Miracast implementations to make more efficient use of their HW-architecture
4. Power-consumption of Miracast was too high (the device has to encode it's display content into a H.264 stream)
In the end Google saw the potential to deliver a good experience with a cheap dongle and took matters in their own hands. Miracast on AOSP was not maintained further because it was anyway not used by any major device-vendor (Samsung, LG, Sony, Motorola)
I use it every day and the experience is decent. Google just didnt like the competition from an open standard i guess. but, they dont control what vendors do.
I dont want a proprietary content aware equivalent. There is no beauty to sending metadata separately. There is beauty in having a dead simple way of mirroring whats on my phone that will play any kind of video.
No, as said, vendors add it themselves because the core functionality is now provided and maintained by the vendor of the device-chipset. A generic AOSP ("stock") implementation was proven to be inferior to a custom Miracast component tailored for i.e. Qualcomm DSP/GPU, that's why AOSP didn't continue maintaining it.
not to mention unnecessarily doubling your network bandwidth usage, introducing extra latency, using more power.
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?)
That's what Google calls "Google TV" now, a product which still exists. During the transition they called the dongles "Chromecast with Google TV". Now the "Chromecast" part of it is discontinued and its all "Google TV".
So that's not going away? I really can't tell from TFA. The entire thing seems like a hot mess – the link I was hoping would explain why I'd want AI in my Chromecast successor is dead/404 as well in the "Google TV streamer" announcement (https://blog.google/products/google-nest/google-tv-streamer/).
From what I understand, this is the product they mean with "we're ending production of Chromecast, which will now only be available while supplies last."
They kept using the "Chromecast" brand just for dongles, and are now discontinuing all dongles in favor of a single new product.
My guess is that they reached a point where it's more economic to merge the GoogleTV reference design (ADT-3, ADT-4) with their Dongle-line and create a single box which serves both purposes...
You haven't been left behind. You've already made the transition.
In the old paradigm, the Chromecast was not the starting point for TV watching. Some other device, typically a smartphone, was. That's why the old Chromecasts did not include a remote control or have a home screen.
In the new paradigm, the Chromecast is the starting point. It has a remote. You can install apps on it, and it has a home screen to launch them from.
The first device of the new paradigm was still called a Chromecast, even though casting was no longer the core functionality. Now the brand is being made more consistent with what the devices in the new paradigm actually do.
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).
There used to be a solution to extract the key from your own Chromecast to simply use it for your own purposes.
But then they evolved the protocol to Cast_v2 which IIRC had more hardened security, so it's just a matter of time until they stopped supporting v1 and simply lock out all devices.
It's a pity, because it would be great to push content to custom receivers in your house (i.e. send a YouTube link to a Squeezebox server)
[EDIT] I've just seen discussion on why it's not equivalent in response to this comment here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41171297
I would love to see something like Chromecast but open.
1. MDNS to find the display. 2. Send a URL to display. 3. Devices can send messages (with some way to tell them appart for security reasons, probably require and explicit opt-in to receive messages from non-initiator devi
This is similar to the current protocol except step 2 is to send an app ID registered and approved by Google rather than an arbitrary URL. (Or some pre-made apps for things like playing a video from a URL or screen mirroring)
RIP Mozilla Matchstick
From https://www.dial-multiscreen.org/dial/protocol-specification v2.2.1
This has exactly the same "pre approved" list problem as Chromecast. But it is actually worse because you can only launch apps that are already installed on the device. (Better in some ways because there may be advantages to native apps, but worse for openness and small competitors)
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.
Like any client-server protocol, it's useless if the devices and apps you use don't support it. Exactly zero of the apps I use to cast to my Chromecast supports Open Screen Protocol. And this isn't a case where I can just switch to a new client app. Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, Jellyfin, etc. would have to all support it.
The really good news is that At least for many many apps, the effort to port to OpenScreemCast should be reasonably minimal. Chromecast for much of it's life has - under the covers - been web o ly, and rejiggering for the mild differences between Cast and OSP shouldn't be that wild.
Where-as Matter Cast requires native apps on the target device, and the app has to be pre installed to work.
Products would be preferred suggestions, but I'm even at the point of considering DIY solutions, if something looks lego-ish enough!
But if you check for anything DIY, they're either sourcing panels directly from manufacturers in China, or ripping apart smart TVs (or just "not using" parts of them). There's a happy middle ground and I know, from experience, that's it's not an expensive one, even though I also know from experience that it's often times an extremely pricey one. By which I mean, the panels themselves are cheap for an outlet to get and use, while actually trying to buy a panel from those outlets is reserved for B2B applications and is priced for enterprise work.
What I was hoping for is that someone who knows about those kinds of panels and that kind of work would be able to say "Ah, yeah, here's a great panel that we use for our displays which is a good deal". But, so far, I've never had any takers on that. It's a small industry (or, at least it was when I was involved), so that's not unexpected. But I keep hoping that some dogged youtuber or some experimental blogger will figure out how to source all the bits for the TV that so many of us want, but that there's is strong business disincentives to create.
That's what's most galling, I think. Samsung/LG/Sony could make this and sell it, but they refuse to because it would provide an alternative to the market they really want which is ad capture/data harvesting. And I'm just so tired of that being the only option for that specific reason. Because now I'm stuck here hoping that someone out there makes the least-complex, cheapest, and fastest thing for a TV manufacturer to make, which seems like the dumbest thing to have to hope for.
Now your cheap replaceable external box is the internet-connected computer and your expensive wall-mounted TV is an appliance.
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.
$99 for Google Streamer.
This "streamer" is overpriced for the market.
Great panel but the software stinks.
In my case, I did connect it once to the internet, to see what's up, and since it had prime video which is pretty much the only thing I watch, it could have allowed me to not have a different box and cables laying around.
And, indeed, it started showing ads on the homepage and the UI was pretty laggy, even compared to my several-year-old firetv. Fortunately, I was able to do a full factory reset and it forgot everything.
Now I only use the software to switch to an HDMI input which doesn't handle the control bits, like a PC, and to increase the brightness in case I'm watching at noon and don't want to close the blinds. 90% of the time, though, I don't even know it exists, since I only use my set top box' remote to do everything I need (change channels and volume, turn on and off). The other 10% it works well enough that I can't really complain.
I'm not sure how to determine which models do or don't ship with cell chips.
IOW, if it has been done, hackaday, et al., would have already shown us how to bypass the weak obfuscation and get free data. Or at least an article on “my new Samsung TV has a cell modem that they don’t advertise. ‘da fuq?”
I don't think Sony or Samsung would be paying consumer prices for cheap low-end cell chips or bulk low-bandwidth data plans.
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
It’s certainly better in other ways but this thread doesn’t follow
I feel like nobody running product at google has any idea what they're doing.
Real shame, I prefer controlling with my phone more than the shitty smart tv interfaces. Don’t even get me started with controlling said interfaces with my phone, it’s not as simple.
I use a tv from 2010 , Chromecast is the retrofit that lets me do modern streaming. Of course we’re far past the transitional stage the device served as every $100 tv is equipped with streaming.
I have to say, I don't really see this product strategy as being good, or working. Google's product is just a mess, they are nearing Microsoft levels of incoherence. When you compare Google with Apple, it's such a night and day experience.
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.
Until, in a few years, there is another such blogpost, and it goes to the Google office in the sky.
Really, Google seems like possibly the worst ecosystem to go all in on, in that bits of it keep unexpectedly vanishing.
It may be the product of how boring my personal digital requirements are but I haven't been burned yet by their many abandonments. I really only use pretty core services (Gmail/ Drive/Calendar, ChromeOS/Android/Pixel Watch, Google TV) that I don't anticipate going anywhere soon.
The biggest downside so far is overcoming the ethical dilemma of such a resignation. I'd prefer to use what's best in every case independently, but the value I put on convenience grows every year.
We already know. Your privacy.
I mean, it is quite a leap to ungoogle totally, but having a Nest listening 24/7? And everything else?
Aren't you worried Google will just lock you out someday?
I was an early user for Google Apps for Your Domain, which was a free version of what is now Google Workspace that you could use with custom domains. I signed up for Google Play Music with that account.
Then they introduced Google Family, with app sharing and a family plan for Google Play Music, but you couldn't use Google Workspace accounts as part of a family plan. So I went back to using a regular Gmail account, manually moving my playlists for Google Play Music, and repurchasing the handful of apps I wanted to be able to share with my kids.
Google bought Fitbit, and we got some Fitbit Ace watches for our kids. Then Google decided that Fitbit accounts needed to be converted to Google accounts, but the kids can't use their watches with their Android tablets anymore, because the Fitbit app won't let you log in to use your Ace (the kid watch) with a child account from a Google family. The watch designed for kids doesn't work with the account management designed for kids. My wife's Fitbit died and she was ready to buy the newer version of it, except that one doesn't work with the Fitbit app store because (presumably) they want people to buy the more expensive Pixel watches and use that completely separate app library.
Somewhere in there I had to switch my playlists from Google Play Music to YouTube Music. They also decided to start charging for the free Google Workspace plans, eventually relenting only if you solemnly promised it was only for personal use.
I'm the kind of person who should be a loyal Google customer, but I've been burned enough that my immediate response to a new Google product is to wonder what I would do if it suddenly disappeared.
I feel much more like The Product is the Consumer with G, vs Apple.
To me Apple product- / business-approach seems torn between capturing the audience with delight vs high prices to achieve profit.
An easy choice that you somehow managed to get wrong?
I still can't "cast" YouTube audio to my Google Home Mini unless I use the Home Mini in Bluetooth mode (I have more reliable Bluetooth speakers for that) even as a YouTube Premium user.
My Nest devices are stuck in limbo between the Google Home and Nest apps; it's been like this for years.
Integrating new Google devices into Google Home tends to fail without helpful troubleshooting a few times before they succeed.
I refuse to upgrade my Nest Thermostat 1, even though it doesn't support needed features like the temperature sensors. I've also had to turn off all the learning because it decides I'm not home, and doesn't infer that I am home from my Google Wifi hubs.
YouTube Music casts toy Google Home Mini. Are you trying to watch YouTube on your phone but have the audio come out the speakers?
And Google, too.
I feel like I am the product.
"no changes to our support policy" links to https://safety.google/nest/
It bothers me when these company blogs link to the wrong page for finding the aforementioned policy. It feels so deceptive. I've seen it happen multiple times. Is it intentional?
Its Google, so almost certainly advertising related tracking (and the associated bloat)
The old Chromecast experience -- choose media on phone, play on TV -- is all I ever wanted. I hate using a remote to browse -- my phone is much better. I hate having my TV logged into an account -- my family, kids, guests all use the same TV and I don't want them using my account, nor do I want to see their account when I'm using it.
The Chromecast protocol is the only thing that the entire ecosystem of Android streaming apps integrates nicely with. I wish Google would open it up to third parties to create Chromecast-replacement devices... but of course they won't. They aren't doing what's best for users, they are doing what's best for their engagement metrics and revenue. And thus, our experience actually gets worse.
I love Chromecast on vacations for the same reason: I can continue using my subscriptions without logging my account into the hosts TV.
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.
I understand that, but the new Chromecast devices and presumably the devices replacing them require you to log into the device before you can even use it as a Chromecast stream destination, and then when the video is done instead of going back to nice photos they try to shove algorithmic recommendations in your face. I want the old Chromecast back.
Just to try, I just logged out of my Google Chromecast with Google TV (yes folks, it may time to rebrand...), and started playing a stream from Spotify using my phone.
And now I'm listening to Spotify.
I did this with both Google Cast and Spotify Connect (Spotify, at least on Android, allows selection of this).
No issues.
Am I not holding it right? It sure has the appearance of working correctly, but we may not be observing the same things.
The new $100 TV Streamer has 32GB of RAM. 32GB of consumer RAM alone is at least $50, and that doesn't include any of the other stuff (graphics, cpu, nic) that makes a minimally useful device.
https://store.google.com/product/google_tv_streamer_specs
Seems pricey for what it offers. Just WiFi 5 - not even WiFi 6 or 6E, let alone WiFi 7. It doesn't even come with an HDMI cable, sigh.
Chromecast is core to how my family’s television usage works. I got a free Chromecast recently and it’s a much worse UX than the ones I got many years ago.
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. It feels frustrating and kind of ugly that there’s an Apple version and a Google version, etc.
Sonos, take note.
I thought they just couldn't work out how to make casting work, like how they still haven't figured out RSTP.
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.
Not as nice as Channels DVR (which also lets you record streams and will strip commercials), but one of the nicer streaming boxes for the money.
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.
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.
Oh, so they're just rebranding and not making it a dongle anymore....
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.
Exactly. Also: I just want to watch stuff. I don't want AI or smart-home features.
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.
And also https://roon.app/en/ for music streaming software that can group up devices from a bunch of different manufacturers.
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
Oh so that was why they disappeared? Seriously, it's time to rework the entire patents system. You should only get a patent granted when you attach a reasonable (!) price tag and agree to non-discriminatory licensing.
Had I known Sonos would be like that, I wouldn't have bought their products. Their latest app also totally broke the speakers. Stay far far away from Sonos.
Before they locked Chromecast protocol down, it was easy to push audio from a linux pulseaudio sound server to Chromecast device(s).
The patchbay interface in soundsync looks neat. Also patch bay interfaces: BespokeSynth, HoustonPatchBay, RaySession, patchance, org.pipewire.helvum (GTK), easyeffects (GTK4 + GStreamer), https://github.com/BespokeSynth/BespokeSynth/issues/1614#iss...
pipewire handles audio and video streams. soundsync with video would be cool too.
FWIU Matter Casting is an open protocol which device vendors could implement.
I didn’t use the Chromecast ultra much but I thought it was pretty neat. Kinda sad to see it go.
Honestly the Google Stadia controller is probably the most comfortable and well designed controller I’ve used. I still have it and use it for PC gaming stuff. I don’t play video games much anymore so I don’t know if the other controllers nowadays are better but that was my experience.
The point I’m trying to make is that it seems Google has talented engineers and designers. So I wonder why so many of its products fail and why it cancels so many things…
https://blog.google/products/google-nest/google-tv-streamer/
Most android devices support Miracast, but Google abandoned support for miracast in their firstparty devices in order to promote their proprietary (Google cast/Chromecast) solution.
This line in particular puts a bad test in my mouth, because my $2k LG G2 OLED has the worst support for casting I've ever experienced. In fact the software in general is so bad I was excited to pre-order the new Google TV Streamer this morning, so I don't have to deal with it again.
Hopefully they'll try to reach back that low-end market in some way.
Spend way too much on the chromecasts and home devices. I guess they will continue to work for a few years, hopefully.
After this, no more google devices for me.
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.
Dev 1: “Well we have this backlog of bug reports and issues for Chrimecast”
Dec 2: “Ugh. I don’t want to do maintenance. Acknowledgment of there bugs will be a black mark on my career!”
Dev 1: “Lets re-brand it and close all the bugs. Now those bugs become features and we start with a clean slate!”
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...
I would argue that this still holds true today. Is there any reliable way to do the screen mirroring/photo sharing from an Android phone to a Samsung smart TV without additional devices? My Pixel works great with Chromecast or a similar dongle(e.g. Xiaomi Box) but I really couldn't make it work without them. I tried a couple of options from plain Android sharing, through Samsung's SmartThings, to some sketchy apps that ask for your CC for trial but none of them worked before I gave up and asked my host for a HDMI cable.
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.
Nvidia Shield and Onn still have better value for their niches.
But "Google TV Streamer"? No, I don't want that. I just want a relatively dumb device that allows me to stream stuff from my other devices to my TV. Chromecast has always been that, and has always worked fairly well. I don't need or want yet another media center platform.
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?).
Controller support would have been a selling point of the existing line of affordable devices.
Hopefully this is not the case with the $20 Onn Android TV device with USB ports FWIU instead of another $100*n TVs for updates through when now?
Still, from what I can see, it's the best device available barring Apple TV.
I've been searching around, but ready made there isn't anything that's better (on paper) and the DIY route, the only alternative I can see is LineageOS in the Banana PI. [1] AFAIK, that's not great because it doesn't have hardware acceleration, which for a device to do heavy media consumption in a 4K TV, is not an option.
I would be really happy to know about some better alternatives.
https://support.google.com/product-documentation/answer/1023...
So, pretty typical product/marketing shitshow from Google, unfortunately.
Going back to AppleTV for my next device. I don’t like how search steers all results through Apple, but I can work around that. Plus I can use it as an exit node on my Tailscale network.
Rokus can send volume/mute commands through CEC. The volume buttons on my Roku control my home theater receiver, they controlled the volume on a sound bar on a different TV, and they controlled the TV volume.
Do they? They have your IP address, most likely email, user IDs for various streaming platforms, your location... All of that for sale to anyone that will pay Roku for it.
I also have a smart TV, but the Roku has a lot of apps that the TV doesn't.
Short of having an always on camera and microphone, this is amongst the scummiest corporate spying behavior out there.
Edit: actually it appears to be "opt-in"
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.
I have one and I've never used the 'cast' feature. I only run the apps for the streaming services i watch plus VLC.
Somehow I think this will be impossible in the new and improved version...
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.
It seems like this helps with initial adoption of the product (backed by Google!) but erodes trust in the brand every time they axe a cult-favorite ("why would I invest time in ${x} when they'll probably just kill it off in a couple of years anyway..?")
Would it be better if Google launched these products subsidiaries without (obvious) links to Google?
Total Arm-Chair QB exercise, but one I feel might be interesting to get feedback on...
Expensive and quality speakers that are basically bricks at this point.
I'm hoping this hardware is faster. The previous model was very laggy compared to the Apple TV or Nvidia Shield. But probably not. It just looks like the Chromecast team is tyring to shoehorn in AI features because it's 2024. I guess the description summaries could be helpful, maybe.
We used it every evening for years and 19/20 times it streams effortlessly and instantly... 1/20 times I'm restarting browsers, TV's, WiFi until we give up and watch on a laptop.
Back to the HDMI cable. In retrospect, I should have never left it.
I honestly don't see the point on upgrading or even buying over prev. version
They said they sold 100 million Chromecasts, but do 100 million houses really have (or need, or want) home automation? I seriously doubt it.
Yes, video streaming can be done easily nowadays. But finding a multi-room audio solution that works across different brands and also on offline devices was my main reason for getting into chromcast.
I never bought the newer Chromecast and its just been sitting idle, hopeless dangling off of an HDMI port since. My world has moved on as literally everything else can get shows displaying on a TV including the TV.
I guess it was coming.
Example use-case: I was recently in a hotel, travelling just with my phone. The hotel TV supported Chromecast, and I was able to connect my phone and watch some movies from Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, and YouTube apps. This was super convenient.
who pressured Google to do this? or did they "pressure themselves" to do it?
the BEST feature of early Chromecasts was the ability to cast any video from any page. it was revelatory!
and then that feature was silently removed.
so using a real Chromecast, it still is possible to Cast any tab at all?
damn, i should get that Chromecast back out!
thank you for the correction!
Yeah, that's right. I showed up here to mention I'm still bitter over Google Reader.
No, I'm NOT "getting over it" (contrary to the cease and desist letter I got from Google recently).
Then, the rebranding is only because they've abandoned the original "minimal footprint" ethos of ChromeCast.
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")
> Today, we’re introducing Google TV Streamer, a more premium device built for the new era of entertainment and smart home needs.
> , bringing its best features to our next-generation 4K TV streaming device — but as a faster, more premium version.
Your home, controlled by Google. What could possibly go wrong?
Also this is the first product they killed that I agree with.
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.
It annoying no longer is behind the TV, just copying Apple (an irritating but effective marketing ploy).
> And thanks to Gemini technology on Google TV, you can now get full summaries, reviews and season-by-season breakdowns of content, so finding your next marathon-watch just got easier.
They know it needs to be "AI powered" but they can't figure out anything that actually needs modern AI, so it's relegated to doing ordinary internet searches.
It's interesting, though, because there are existing sources for this content, like IMDB and wikipedia.
I wonder if the real point is more about selling ads while avoiding having to cut a deal with those existing sources. An LLM can essentially "launder" content so that, in general, it's hard to determine the sources for any given response. (There are plenty of individual examples where you can tell exactly what the primary source was, but those are the exception.)
I suspect the quality of the LLM-generated content will be worse than existing sources, but since the real point is to avoid sharing ad revenue, not providing good content to the user, that will probably be fine. It content doesn't need to be good, just good enough.
Welcome to the AI future! It's a lot grubbier than I expected.
Chromecast
Chromecast Ultra
Chromecast with Google TV
Google TV
YouTube TV
YouTube Premium
YouTube Music
YouTube Red
etc.
Can you see my surprised face? Me, too, neither.
Google is a serial murderer of its own parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins.
There is no product too small, or large, for Google to murder.
It is beyond my ken why any person, organization, company, or government would do business with Google or use Google's products.
You're just biding time for Google to murder your profits.
does this mean airplay will be the only game in town from now on, that is, to cast your audio or screen from your phone to smart speaker or TVs.
1. Sometimes it took 2-3 minutes to wakeup from the sleep state.
2. The remote is so curved on the bottom (literally a semi-circle) that I struggled to pick it up and the only ways to reliably pick it up successfully resulted in inadvertent button presses
3. The remote is overly minimalist. 8 buttons total. Missing buttons include a play/pause button, which is easily the most vital button for a device dedicated to playing media. Sometimes the center button acts as play pause but other times not. It has taken me 30s to pause what I'm watching when I'm already holding the remote (add in #2 and it can take me over a minute to pause)
4. Sometimes media playback just crashes and I need to start over.
5. Tons of ads. I was expecting this from a Google product, but thought I'd mention it anyways
TL;DR: If you want a STB, just pay the extra $20 for a Roku, everything about it works absurdly better. If the Roku cost $100 more, I'd still recommend it for anyone not on the most extreme of budgets.
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.
Assuming a TV consumes 70 Watts, why would they want to encourage using it as a picture frame? Either they care about the environment or they don't.
On the other side, Chromecast is something that's been essential in my family's home for years, so it's worrisome what alternatives my, for example, mother will have.
what are some good alternatives to Chromecast? (can cast from phone or desktop browser)
The worst thing about modern TVs are all their smart shit. I just want a monitor, no speakers, no nothing, just HDMI input and a large, good image, it's what it should do. Sound should come from the stereo system. Input should come from input devices, such as chromecast and gaming consoles.
I hate this future.
Chromecast is a great device to have with you on the road. Now it's this massive brick?. Why would I want this?
It's just another reason to not get invested in anything Google related. Whatever you do you'll always end up with a discontinued product or a brick in the end.
That's it. I'm NEVER buying another google device again.
It was exactly what I want in a device: Do one thing and do it well.
I decided to replace it with a new "Chromecast" device to find out that it bears next to no resemblance to the original. Today's Chromecasts are just wannabe Roku devices with actual casting being relegated to the status of unwanted stepchild. It forces you to sign in to a Google account, which the original did not force you to do. The original was a small stick that could be powered by the USB coming from the TV itself, whereas the new one is a larger white puck that needs a wall wort and can't be powered by a regular (non-C) USB connection. My final disappointment was that VLC fails to cast to it, even though it worked perfectly with the original.
All I want is a way to cast any video I want to my TV. This is apparently a huge ask in 2024. I looked up alternative devices on Amazon and they all seem inferior or have deal breakers like trying to Do Everything(TM), not supporting 4K, using some weird protocol, requiring a login, etc.
An alt: Apple AirPlay works super well even with Android tvs nowadays.
The original Chromecast was really good at just letting you cast anything to a TV.
This is crazy and infuriating. I would have returned both TVs to the store if this happened to me. Was this advertised on the box? This feels like it shouldn't be legal because you're being forced into a legal agreement after purchasing the product.
The smart stupidity is why I didn't cry at all when the kids broke the Samsung piece of shit. Vizio has my vote, at least for now.
Bought 2 of them since I "lost" the first one (then later found it), and now that it's been discontinued, one of my best backup purchases ever.
Daily driver for my 85" gaming TV/media center. Tried other couch keyboards, but always ended up coming back to this one.
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 had a similar problem with some (Android phone) apps. Casting a movie, and after half an hour or so the app would lose its connection to the Chromecast. Which meant you couldn't control (e.g. seek backward/forward) the movie anymore without restarting it (the movie). This didn't happen with some other apps though, e.g. the Google TV app. Apparently it is easy to not properly implement the Chromecast connection. Perhaps the connection gets terminated when the phone goes to idle mode, unless you do something to prevent that.
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.
I used to do that, with a Linux HTPC and Plex. I eventually switched to the physical AppleTV device, with all the content on a surplus Mac mini connected to the home network. It's just less work to maintain. On the old setup, it always worked perfectly whenever I was around and had plenty of time to tinker with things. It only ever had problems when I was at the office, very busy, and the kids wanted to watch some show I had digitized from our DVD collection. Granted, the problems were always small and easily fixed, but they were disruptive because of the circumstance.
I've never had that happen to me with the Apple setup. Yeah, you've got to at least partially buy into their ecosystem. But they don't force you to go all in if you don't want to.
With that in mind, if I wanted a Linux HTPC setup for minimal tinkering, for the purposes of accessing YouTube and Jellyfin, I'd probably go with an immutable system; I like the look of Bazzite for this. Then, I'd probably disable automatic updates, and manually update things periodically when I have time. If it breaks, you can always roll it back, but manual updates will take the minimal potential disruptions to probably just zero. You could run this on a cheap mini/NUC PC. For TVs that are not mounted to the wall, you could probably even mount it to the back using a VESA mount adapter.
That said, I don't currently have plans to replace all of my Chromecast setups, so I haven't actually done this. That's because they've been working very well for years and there's really no reason to mess with something that works. They were cheap, they run Android apps, and I've cut out all of the unwanted advertising.
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.
Seems to be a reason to charge people more for the same thing but slap the AI label all over it. But that's just first impressions.
Edit: and apparently the TV Streamer thing is twice the price of the Chromecast.
At their original price point, Chromecasts were pretty great, but why on earth would I pay the same as an Apple TV for something containing an SoC from 2021? I wasn't able to find reliable numbers, but performance seems to be lower by 1-2 orders of magnitude.
Though if you lose your remote in the cushions or whatever note that your iPhone can be used as a "hotter hotter colder colder" method to find the remote. Was surprised to find this feature. https://support.apple.com/en-ca/108371
It also supports a wide variety of wireless gaming controllers (including PS and xbox ones). The games aren't as good as a Switch or PS4, though.
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.
The Shield is literally the only streaming device on the market that I'm aware of that does this. Without it, I wouldn't get the Atmos/DTS:X information passed on to my receiver when watching blu-ray rips.
For audio it says it supports "Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Atmos", so I guess we can only assume that means DTS-X is missing.
But supporting HDR10+ a nice win over the shield, and it also does support the necessities like HLG, H.265, H.264, VP9, and AV1.
https://www.androidauthority.com/google-tv-streamer-processo...
heh...
Single core:
Fire Stick - 140
Shield TV - 279 (99% faster, twice as fast).
Tensor G1 (Pixel 6 Pro) - 1007 (619% faster, seven times faster)
A15 (Apple TV) - 1684 (1103% faster, 12 times as fast).
Multi-core:
Fire Stick - 491
Shield TV - 971 (98% faster, twice as fast).
Tensor G1 (Pixel 6 Pro) - 2541 (418% faster, five times faster)
A15 (Apple TV) - 4489 (814% faster, nine times as fast).
We're going to be seeing a lot of this in the next year or two.
The chat mess with Google Talk, Hangouts, Meet, Duo, etc. was quite sad to watch because Talk was a great product.
I hope they're happy with the zoo they have.
The sale of Domains was also massive imo. No reason for half of this and their internal incentivization needs dramatic revision.
Most usage is via a Chromecast Ultra. I have a Chromecast 4K with TV (i.e. newer device) but it was a backwards step from an experience perspective (covered by others elsewhere).
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.
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.
> Although the specifications for the MT8696 haven’t been published by MediaTek anywhere online, Amazon [which also used it in the past] says that the MT8696(T) variant of the chipset in the 2nd Gen model features a quad-core CPU clocked at up to 2.0GHz. The core design is ARM’s Cortex-A55
> The 2020 Chromecast with Google TV (4K) utilized Amlogic’s S905X3 SoC with four ARM Cortex-A55 cores clocked at up to 1.9GHz
Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41171393
So both use 4 x Cortex-A55. The alleged "22% faster CPU performance" does sound strange, as the maximum clock speed is merely ~5% higher. Though it does have more RAM (4 GB instead of 2 GB).
They could have used a more recent SoC instead of the Mediatek from 2021, which would have been more efficient, but also more expensive. Making it a box instead of a dongle could also be motivated by better audio recording ability (for AI assistants), perhaps.
At the same time, the current generation Apple TV will absolutely smoke this thing in performance, even though the Apple TV is at the end of its refresh cycle.
Honestly, I'm not sure which company frustrates me more right now. Updating apps on Google Play has become a nightmare compared to Apple, where review times can stretch to two weeks (sic). Plus, the google search is practically useless.
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.