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Comment by Pxtl | Hacker News Reader

Chromecast is missing one thing, imho: a controller for my kids.

I'm not giving my kids the Nexus 7 every time they want to watch something on the TV screen. The Chromecast suddenly goes from a $35 to a $235 device. Instead I have a uHost android-stick that uses an accelerometer-based airmouse... it's not good, but it works and cost me $50.

I keep waiting for Google to complete the Nexus line with a bare-bones 4" low-quality phoneless device for kids - an answer to the iPod.

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Grab a roku instead. If i'm on my nexus 7 i can cast to the roku using plex, netflix, or youtube (and probably others, but i'm in canada so my streaming service selection is a little limited). It's the exact same experience as using my roommate's chromecast. And Roku has a standalone remote that can be used instead of a smartphone/tablet/computer.

Also remember that the controller doesn't need to be an Android device. You could actually get an iPod Touch (perhaps a used one) for this. Or a used / refurbished first gen Nexus 7?

The Chromecast supports HDMI CEC in order to turn on the TV and switch inputs, so I don't understand why it doesn't support allowing the TV remote to control the Chromecast. Most TVs support CEC, and HDMI sources can request to be sent the TV remote button press events.

You couldn't control everything the chromecast can do with simple controls, such as selecting which content to play.

That said you could pause, rewind, fast forward, and unpause, I suppose. But you'd still need some other device to select content.

Cheapest iPod touch (229$) is more expensive than a MotoG.

FWIW, the Moto G comes pretty close to this. A lot of the cheap Android tablets do as well.

Unfortunately the Moto G still a phone. It can still make emergency (911) calls without a SIM card. There's no way to disable that functionality, even in the various Android distros.

You can disable the dialer and lock screen (or use a lock screen replacement from the Play Store).

I have never encountered a lock screen replacement that actually replaced the lock screen. I've seen some that run in front of it, but every time they'd just pass off to the real thing.

Disabling the dialer does not disable emergency dialing as far as I could tell.

The only way to dial emergency numbers is through the dialer or the lock screen. If you disable both then you can't dial emergency numbers. Then, if you still want to lock your screen you can use a third-party app.

You could see 911 calls as a feature. What if you are knocked unconscious and your kid has to dial 911? the new 'remote' could be a bonus emergency phone.

You can turn off radio by going into an airplane mode, then enabling Wi-fi. At least that's how I use my Galaxy Nexus as a media player after I got my Nexus 5. (and same method works for Nexus 5, so I'm assuming it'd also work on Moto G...)

How about use an older Android phone with the sim pulled?

Phones without SIMs can still call 911...

Not if you disable the dialer and replace the lock screen.

Sounds less like a technical issue and more like a parenting one.

Plus having another way to dial 9-11 from the living room could be good if you don't have a land-line.

You've obviously never given a toddler a cellphone to play a video. They'll find a way to do it, so you have to watch them like a hawk. For older kids, this is less of a problem.

On the other hand, they can use the AppleTV remote quite easily without much worry. So, the lack of a viable (dedicated) remote for the Chromecast is an issue for some.

For us, I have an AppleTV in the living room that the kids can use, but a Chromecast in the bedroom that only my wife and I use. Although, I have had a problem before where my 3 year old figured out how to tell Netflix on an iPad to play a movie to our Chromecast. She had no idea why her movie wouldn't play and got very frustrated!

> They'll find a way to do it, so you have to watch them like a hawk.

I'm curious why this wasn't really a problem when we had landlines in our houses. Is it just because these devices are a lot more fun to play with than phones were and the kid eventually dials 911 accidentally?

No, it's because there's usually an emergency call button of some kind (so the towers can route your call based on location, iirc), you're not actually entering the sequence "911". No touchtone phone I've seen has a big red "911" autodial button.

Also, the devices are used for entertainment, even if you did give a toddler a touchtone phone as a toy, you'd disconnect it from the line.

The emergency call button brings up a standard dialer keypad. It does not dial 911 for you. It would be crazy if it did, since emergency numbers vary wildly by locale.

Could be useful for travelers, so I guess fear of butt dials/kid dials must be the reason it isn't implemented.

Here in the UK, our emergency number is 999. Or you can dial 112, as that's the European standard, and we'd be daft not to implement it even if we hadn't agreed to do so. Alternatively, try dialling 911, which I understand also works and which was introduced to help children who grew up with US TV.

In any case, the phone won't actually dial the number even if you do type it in -- if you dial what it thinks is an emergency number, it initiates the emergency call setup, which is what lets you dial without a SIM and on a different providers' network. So a dedicated button is all that's required.

This does mean that there's a possibility that my phone and the PSTN disagree over what constitutes an emergency network, but as the phone gets its numbers from the SIM, which comes from my provider, which is regulated by the same people as make the rules for the PSTN, it seems likely that all the options will work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_telephone_number

Where on earth did you get that idea? I've never owned a smartphone with a button like that.

Should be possible to do a custom build without support for the phone part. I've never tried this, but based on the fact that some early Cynaogen ports (As far as I can recall) didn't support dialling via the phone, it should be possible to create a build without the drivers/blobs for enabling the phone part?

Have you considered a really cheap android Tablet. I've seen some at wal-mart for right at 50 Dollars. I'm sure its not a very good tablet. but if all you are doing is using it to throw content to the chromecast it would probably get the job done.

Sounds like there may be a market opportunity for a simple chromecast remote...

Personally, I'd just like to have a way to use my Logitech Harmony Remote with Chromecast.

For $55 you can get a Chinese android phone(and there are new chips that might take the price down to $35). Google can't reduce this price any further.

I'm curious about these $55 Android phones, what are they called? Also what are the new chips that could bring them down to $35? Even just the names would be enough to point me in the right direction and would be appreciated.

When the question is "where can I find suppliers of generic Chinese ________?", the answer is always "Alibaba".

http://www.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-android-phone.html?Sea...

Do they actually just let you order now? I know for the longest time most of the stuff there you could only just send and "inquery" and they'd ignore you if you were looking to just buy a single unit of something. I usually hit DX.Com for "I want something cheap and Chinese and partially-functional".

Yes, that's basically what AliExpress is -- Alibaba wholesalers willing to ship as few as 1 unit.

Phone(Malata I60 ) [1], chip [2].

[1] http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-Malata-I60-Android-4-1-Dual-Core-M...

[2] http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=13208...

You can get a Kyocera Rise (ICS) from Amazon for $35.

That's what I mean. Get a Google-blessed phoneless version of one of these things - something like a Galaxy Discover or other crappy 3.5" phones but without the anemic processor or pointless rear-camera.

Call it the Nexus 3, sell it for $100 - same price point as the iPod Nano, but with actual wifi and a real OS instead of being a pure media player. Sell a nice little boxed set at Costco of a Nexus 3, ChromeCast and a charging dock for the Nexus 3 device at Costco for like $140.

Why does it need to be phoneless? Just don't put a SIM in it

buy your kids a under $50 android tablet and keep the Nexus 7 away from them!

any machine running chrome works.

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