Chromecast works well for streaming music, but it's not always convenient to use a TV for this. Now that the Google Cast technology from Chromecast is added to other devices (Nexus Player, TVs powered by Android TV), Google Cast-enabled speakers make sense.

"Google Cast for audio embeds the same technology behind Chromecast into speakers, sound bars, and A/V receivers. Just like Chromecast, simply tap the cast button in your favorite music or radio app on Android, iOS, or the web, and select a Google Cast Ready speaker to get the party started," informs Google. There are already many Android and iOS apps that support Google Cast: Pandora, Google Play Music, Rdio, Songza, Tunein, iHeart Radio, Deezer, Rhapsody and more.


Instead of casting music to TVs, you're casting it directly to speakers. The downside is that you need new speakers that work with Google Cast.

"The first Google Cast Ready speakers will first be available in the US this spring from lead brands Sony, LG, and HEOS by Denon with more brands coming later in 2015 with the support of chip makers Broadcom, Marvell, MediaTek and system integrator Libre Wireless. These products will join a growing Google Cast ecosystem, which includes more Android TVs, game consoles and set-top boxes."


In many ways, Google Cast is Google's take on AirPlay with a cross-platform twist. Apple's AirPlay started with audio and then it was enabled for video. There are many AirPlay speakers and you can also use Apple's Airport Express to connect speakers. Maybe Google should release a Chromecast version with audio output, so that you don't have to buy new speakers or use adaptors like this one.

To celebrate Chromecast's first birthday, Google extended the Play Music All Access free trial from 30 days to 90 days, but only in the US. You can redeem Chromecast offers from this page. "In order to check for available offers, we require you to share your device's serial number with Google. We use the serial number to provide your device with offers that may be relevant to you," informs Google.


The extended trial is only available if you haven't subscribed to All Access and you haven't used the 30-days free trial. There's more information in the help center:

"Promotion only open to users in United States who have purchased and set up a Chromecast on or before September 30, 2014. Users must set up their All Access account and redeem their code by September 30, 2014 to be eligible for the offer."

What happens when the free trial ends? You'll pay $9.99 per month until you cancel the subscription.

"Once your trial period has ended, you'll be automatically billed each month for your All Access subscription. As an active subscriber, you'll have access to unlimited streaming music from All Access. During your free trial, you can cancel at any time. Unless you cancel, you will not be charged until the start of the first paid billing period."

{ via +Google Play }

As previously announced at Google I/O, Chromecast is about to become a lot more functional. The latest version of the Chromecast app for Android (that's version 1.7) adds support for screen mirroring. The feature is still in beta and it's limited to a few high-end Android phones and tablets running Android KitKat 4.4.1+: Nexus 4, 5, 7 (second generation only) and 10, Samsung Galaxy S4 and S5, Note 3 and 10, HTC One M7, LG G2, G3 and G Pro 2. Google promises to add more devices to the list.


"To start mirroring, simply select 'Cast Screen' from the navigation drawer in the Chromecast app and select your Chromecast device. On Nexus devices, this feature is also available through the quick settings menu," explains Google.


Hopefully, Android L will add native support for screen mirroring, so you'll no longer have to use the Chromecast app.

This screenshot shows screen casting in action. Obviously, the entire screen is mirrored, including the on-screen navigation buttons, if your device has them.

Chromecast is now even more useful: you can watch YouTube's live streams. This should work in YouTube's mobile apps and in Chrome for Android.

Here's a screenshot from YouTube's app for Android:


"With Chromecast available in 18 countries and YouTube live streams happening on the regular, we wanted to share one of our favorite ways to use Chromecast. Head to one of the live streams in the YouTube app, just press the cast button, then kick back and enjoy these live events from the comfort of your living room," informs Google.

Here are some live streams you can watch:

* ASP World Tour (surfing)
* Adidas Dugout live from Rio (football / soccer)
* Birds, puppies, cats and more streaming live @ The Pet Collective
* other live streams

Apparently, "YouTube Live streams cannot be viewed from Germany." Here's an explanation: "because of the German law (RStV), you must have a broadcast licence from the media authorities when you make a live stream that can reach more than 500 people at the same time. Not getting one would result in a fine of up to 500000€. "

The latest beta release of Chrome 35 for Android added support for casting HTML5 videos. You can now send videos to the Chromecast from any site that uses HTML5 video players, including YouTube.

To connect to a Chromecast, you need to play a video in fullscreen, click the cast icon and select a Chromecast device. You can then change the volume, fast forward or switch to a different video. YouTube's mobile site has support for the TV queue, so you can add videos to the queue instead of playing them right away.





The Chromecast integration is not perfect, there are some bugs that need to be fixed, but it's nice to see that you can cast almost any video right from the mobile browser, without having to install other apps and wait for the developers to integrate their apps with Chromecast.

Chrome 35 for Android also adds support for undoing tab closing, Samsung's multi-window feature and fullscreen videos with subtitles and HTML5 controls. Here's a video that shows the undo close tab feature in action, courtesy of Android Police:


{ Thanks, Sterling. }

Photowall for Chromecast is a cool experiment that makes Chromecast more useful. It's a simple way to upload photos from multiple devices and display them in real time on the TV.

"Setting up a Photowall is easy. You'll need to have a Chromecast plugged into your TV, then you can create a Photowall from your laptop, phone or tablet. Once you're set up, you and your friends can start sending photos directly to the big screen. When you're finished, a YouTube video of your Photowall is automatically generated, which is perfect for sharing with everyone who took part," explains Google. Photowall works even if you don't have a Chromecast: it will use your computer screen.




Google also developed apps for Android and iOS. You can also upload photos from your favorite mobile browser by visiting g.co/photowall. Google even lets you tweak the photo before sending it to the TV: you can crop it, add captions and draw using the "doodle" feature.

Chromecast quickly became the best selling electronics product at amazon.com. Now it's at #2 and it has 13,788 reviews. Somehow, everyone had to buy one. It was cheap, it was a Google product and it promised to solve a big problem: connecting your mobile devices to your TV.

The number of apps has continually increased, there's a public API that can be used by developers and now the hardware is no longer available only in the US. "Chromecast is available in an additional 11 countries — Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the U.K," announced Google a few days ago. Google worked with local content providers, so you'll find many new apps that support Chromecast: BBC iPlayer in the U.K., France TV Pluzz and SFR TV in France, Watchever in Germany and more.

Chromecast achieved what Google TV couldn't do. Hardware was cheap and easy to use, content providers felt welcome, software was updated frequently. Google TV tried to solve too many problems at once, hardware wasn't great, software was rarely updated, content providers blocked the browser and didn't develop apps, few people bought Google TV devices. Chromecast did a few things very well and broke the cycle.

"Chromecast complements our Google TV efforts as a low-cost, easy device for consumers to watch online content on their TV without a new TV, new remotes or interfaces. Our partners still offer Google TV-enabled HDTVs and boxes that have the core functionality of Chromecast plus a rich, interactive Android experience," says Google.

If you don't cast music, videos or photos, Google's Chromecast starts to display a slideshow with some beautiful photos. It's a screensaver you can't customize, but the photos are constantly updated by Google.

The Chromecast screensaver is actually a web page you can access from any device, just in case you want to see some great photos or to save them. It's interesting that Google doesn't use Media RSS feeds and the image URLs are hardcoded.


To find the URL of the image that's displayed, right click the page and select "inspect element". Find the code that starts with <div id="container" picture-url= and double click the URL that follows, so you can copy it. I only tested this in Chrome and Firefox.


{ via Chromebook Central }

The number of apps that support Chromecast has increased: there are 10 new apps and most of them are free. Here's the list:

* VEVO (Android, iOS) - music videos app, available in a few countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, UK and US.

* Red Bull.TV (Android, iOS) - videos and shows

* Songza (Android) - music streaming, online radio (there's an iOS app, but it doesn't support Chromecast yet)

* PostTV (Android) - news from Washington Post

* Viki (Android, iOS) - "Korean dramas, Taiwanese, Chinese and Filipino dramas, Telenovelas, Japanese dramas and anime, American cartoons, NBC Universal, History Channel, A&E, E! TV shows, as well as movies from Indonesia, Hong Kong"

* Revision3 (Android, iOS) - shows



* BeyondPod (Android) - podcast manager

* Plex (Android) - media player, Chromecast support only for videos, the app costs $5 (there's an iOS app, but it doesn't support Chromecast yet)

* Avia (Android) - media player, Chromecast support for local videos, music and photos, requires an in-app purchase that costs $3. I tried the app and it works well for local files, but the Google Cast API supports a small number of file formats

* RealPlayer Cloud (Android, iOS) - movie player that stores your videos online, US and Canada only


"There's no need to huddle around small screens when you can share your own photos and videos using your phone, tablet, or laptop," mentions Google.

From what I tried, the most interesting apps seem to be Songza (for playing online music) and Avia (for playing local files).

If you have a Chromecast and you want to try a new app that supports Google's dongle, install TicTacToe for Android or for iOS. It's a very simple game that requires 2 players and displays the results on your TV. You can install it on an Android phone or tablet, on an iPhone or iPad, but you need 2 devices to play the game.


While the game is pretty basic, it shows that Chromecast isn't just for streaming music and video. Once the Google Cast API is out of beta, you'll find a lot more interesting apps. TicTacToe is based on this sample app.

{ via Reddit }

Sometimes you have to go back to basics, create something simple that works and constantly improve it. That's how Google Search, Gmail, Chrome and other Google products became successful. Google TV tried to solve too many problems and ended up with complicated remote controls, buggy software, browsers with blocked content, unhappy partners and disappointed users.

Google Cast and Chromecast try to solve fewer problems and are much more limited. Apps live on your phone or tablet, the remote control is your phone or tablet and Chromecast is just a way to play content on your TV.

The number of apps that support Google Cast is still very small, but they're some of the most popular apps in their category: YouTube, Google Play Music, Google Play Movies, Netflix, Pandora, Hulu Plus, HBO Go. This is about to change when Google releases the official Cast SDK and allows any app or site to integrate with Chromecast.

For now, Google continues to promote Chromecast. "For a limited time we're giving you an HD movie rental from Google Play with every purchase of a Chromecast device. It's the perfect treat to add to that special someone's stocking. At just $35 each, why not pick one up for both of you?" suggests Google Play's site. The promotion is actually "valid for any movie rental or other content on Google Play valued at $6 or less".

Sterling Alvarez noticed a Chromecast button in the Google Play Store app (landscape mode). It only lists the apps that support Google Chromecast, but it's interesting to notice that the link is prominently placed in the default Play Store section for apps.



{ Thanks, Sterling. }

Who said that Google Cast is only for files stored online? Koushik Dutta, a CyanogenMod developer, wrote an Android app that lets you watch videos from your phone or tablet on your TV.

The application is not yet publicly available, but it's not difficult to guess that it uses a local web server. "It's heavily leveraging another project that I've been working on for the better part of 2 years," says the author. The project is probably AndroidAsync.

Here's a demo:


I'm sure we'll see Koushik's app or a similar app in the Google Play Store pretty soon. It will make Chromecast more useful. The next step would be to mirror the device, but that's a lot more complicated.

Right now, Chromecast is only available in the US, at least officially. If you're not in the US, you can try eBay and buy one for $45-70 + shipping fees.


Speaking of Chromecast, it's interesting to know that it doesn't run Chrome OS. It's based on the Android TV code. "It's actually a modified Google TV release, but with all of the Bionic / Dalvik stripped out and replaced with a single binary for Chromecast. Since the Marvell DE3005 SOC running this is a single core variant of the 88DE3100, most of the Google TV code was reused. So, although it's not going to let you install an APK or anything, its origins: the bootloader, kernel, init scripts, binaries, are all from the Google TV."

You don't need a teardown to notice that Chromecast's model number is H2G2-42. From iFixit:

"Wasn't 42 the answer to life, the universe, and everything in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? And H2G2 is an abbreviation given to the book, as well as the name of a website dedicated to making a guide to life, the universe, and everything."




If you check YouTube.com's source code, you'll find some references to "hitchhiker".


One of YouTube's sprites has "hitchhiker" in the filename.

AirPlay is one of the greatest iOS features. It lets you wirelessly stream music, videos, send photos and even mirror your device's display on your TV. It's simple to use, it's supported by many apps and devices, but the most important thing is that it just works. Sure, you'll need to buy an Apple TV or an Airport Express and AirPlay is mostly limited to Apple devices and accessories that license AirPlay from Apple. AirPlay works because it's a native feature, has a consistent interface and it's very easy to understand.

Android OEMs tried to solve the problem of sending content to a TV by adding HDMI ports, supporting MHL and adding software for DLNA. It's obvious that people don't like cables and a mobile device shouldn't be restricted by a cable. DLNA has a lot of compatibility issues and doesn't work well for streaming online content. Last year, HTC and Samsung added an AirPlay-like feature to their flagship phones and started to sell companion devices. The issue was that the features were limited to a few apps. This should've been an Android feature, not two different APIs limited to a few HTC and Samsung devices.

Google started to address this issue when it added support for watching YouTube videos on a TV using the mobile YouTube apps. Pair your mobile phone with your TV and you can easily send the video you're currently watching to the TV. You can also your phone as a remote control and pause the video, change the volume or switch to a different video.

YouTube's "send to TV" is the backbone of Google Cast, a feature that can finally compete with AirPlay. Developers can use "the Google Cast SDK to enable mobile and web apps to cast content to the TV". Google Cast is not limited to Android, it works on Google's favorite platforms: Android, iOS and Chrome. There are already a few apps that support Google Cast: YouTube, Google Play Music, Google Play Movies & TV, Netflix. To use this feature, you need to buy Chromecast, a very cheap device that connects to your TV's HDMI port and runs a simplified version of Chrome OS Google TV. It only costs $35 and it's a lot smaller than an Apple TV. You can buy it from Google Play, Amazon and Best Buy, but only if you're in the US.


Google Cast is only the cloud version of AirPlay: it only works with content that's stored online, so you can't send a song that's stored on your tablet or a video you've just recorded. Just like for AirPlay, the mobile device controls what's playing on your TV, but the content is streamed directly to the Chromecast. There are a few differences: Google Cast works on Android, iOS and Chrome and the Chromecast functionality will be integrated in other devices, including Google TV devices. Another difference is that any mobile device from the same network can control an existing Google Cast stream, so you can have multiple remotes.

Here's the Google Cast icon: it's not displayed when there's no device available.


"While content is playing on TV, a user can multitask on their device. For example, a user can search for a video on their phone's YouTube application and then send it to their TV via a Google Cast device. They are able to play, pause, seek, and control volume using their phone and still be able to check their email while the content keeps playing on the TV," according to the developer documentation.


There's also support for mirroring. "In addition to apps like Netflix, you can use Chromecast to bring a broad range of content available on the web to your big screen, thanks to a new feature in the Chrome browser that allows you to project any browser tab to your TV. From sharing your family photos to enjoying a video clip from your favorite news site, it's as simple as pressing a button. This feature is launching in beta, but we're excited for people to try it out and give us their feedback," explains Google.

Here's a video that shows this feature in action:


To use Google Cast, you first need a Chromecast. It's a low-cost device that connects to one of your TV's HDMI ports and uses USB for power. For only $35, you get a lot: the Chromecast dongle (only 34 grams), a USB cable and power adapter and an HDMI extender. To setup the device, you need to visit google.com/chromecast/setup and install an app. It's interesting to notice that Chromecast only supports 2.4GHz WiFi networks and the only Chromebook you can use to setup Chromecast is Chromebook Pixel.

To cast from your computer, you need to install the Google Cast extension for Chrome. There are only 2 Cast-optimized sites: YouTube and Netflix. For all the other sites, you can cast a tab and mirror it on your TV. Unfortunately, casting a tab requires a powerful computer even for standard streaming: at least a Core i3 PC, a Macbook Pro 2010, a Macbook Air 2011 or a Chromebook Pixel. You need a Core i5 PC, a Macbook Pro 2011, a Macbook Air 2012 or a Chromebook Pixel for high-quality streaming. Casting a tab is limited to 720p streaming, so you won't get 1080p mirroring.


For Android devices, you can use a few apps: YouTube, Google Play Music, Google Play Movies & TV and Netflix. "To cast to your TV from your smartphone, tablet or laptop, simply open up a Cast supported app, press the the Cast button and the Cast button will turn blue, letting you know you're connected. Once you are connected, you can Cast videos, movies and TV shows directly to your TV," explains Google. For now, the only iOS apps that support Google Cast are Netflix and YouTube.



I haven't tried Google Cast, so I don't know how well it performs, but these are the early days. Once more apps add support for Google Cast and more devices include Chromecast's functionality, it will be a lot more useful. Chromecast is a Chrome device, so it will constantly improve and add new features.