Google Chromecast

[Hot Flatus]

What the fuck is this thing? 

It arrived in the post today, uninvited, from my ISP.

Apparently it can "mirror" what is on my phone to my tv. Why would I want to do that? Nobody in the house is going to want to watch me posting shite on YACF or repeatedly losing on chess.com through the same cretinous mistakes, any more than they are going to want to watch endless onanistic Mark King bass solos, unboxings and me trying to find out who Ronnie Pickering is on youtube,
 or me getting banned on Twitter,  or the occasional entirely accidental mild porn when I'm trying to ascertain the exact species of bird in my garden.

[quixoticgeek]

Plug it into your tv, select it as an input. Fire up the gootube app on your phone, hit the cast symbol on the app, then press play on a video, hit play again, and it will appear on the tv via the chrome cast. No need to be limited to watching those GCN videos on a tiny screen.

Also useful, when you're flicking through your photos and want to show one to others, tap the cast symbol in photos. And it will appear on the tv.

You can also cast from the netflix, prime video, bbc sounds, amazon music, and many other android apps. It basically makes a dumb tv semi smart.

J

[mcshroom]

It's how to get Eurosport's cycling coverage onto a large screen

[Hot Flatus]

I have a smart tv. My phone is a Samsung. So is my tv. They collude to embarass me already. I don't need a third party.

[quixoticgeek]

I have a smart tv. My phone is a Samsung. So is my tv. They collude to embarass me already. I don't need a third party.

Well in that case, if you would like you can post it to my home address, and I will solve the problem of you having an item you do not want...

J

[Mr Larrington]

Your ISP sounds uncommonly generous, with all these Google-branded freebies.  Perhaps you should grink them and ask for a lower bill instead of unwanted tat.  It won’t help, but it might bring temporary relief.

[ian]

If there's stuff not on Smart TV, then it's useful. My wife uses it for the Les Mills workouts (lots of Kiwis yelling push harder, hmm maybe she's actually watching upside-down porn).

[fuaran]

Depends on how smart your TV actually is. You might want to use some services that it doesn't support. And will it receive any updates, or will stuff stop working after a while?
Also can be handy to find things on a phone, instead of trying to type on a TV remote. Or connect it to your Google Nest speaker, then you can use voice commands...

[Kim]

I have a smart tv. My phone is a Samsung. So is my tv. They collude to embarass me already. I don't need a third party.

In which case the Chromecast will come in handy in about 18 months time when the lack of firmware updates render the TV's smart features useless.

[Ham]

You use chromecast to mirror what is displayed on another device, PC or mobile or play directly to it. I use it to watch films from my PC media server library, can cast music to it, too. In contrast to the Nest hub, it has no external connectivity.

[MattH]

I've used ours to put the cycling from the GCN Race Pass onto the big telly.

Either log in to the GCN website on the laptop, or use the app on my phone. Select the race we want to watch, press the cast button, and it magically appears on the big screen, without adverts (unlike Eurosport on the YouView box) and able to start watching at any time. I could do the same using a HDMI cable from my laptop, but that's a faff and needs me to be tethered (and risks putting random stuff I'm browsing onto the big screen).

It also gets used for random youtube streaming; we can do that on the youtube app on other boxes, but it's easier to control from the laptop.

The only problem is that the ad blockers on the laptop don't work when casting to the chromecast, so we get interrruptions for ads on YouTube.

[Gattopardo]

Dibs is you are getting ridd of for my non smart tele.

[Hot Flatus]

I've stuck it on my cycling club FB market place for £28, but I will post it to you for same if you want it, Gatto.

[Morat]

Chromecast is great!
It works for iPlayer, All4, ITVHub, My5, Amazon Prime, NowTV (Sky), Netflix - and maybe some others but that covers me...
I generally find it easier to control all those apps from my phone than from a smart TV.
We recently caved to lockdown temptation and bought a big fat Sony TV. I was pleased to find that it has a Chromecast built-in. It's an Android TV so I shouldn't be surprised but despite the TV being new and shiny and having a good remote - I'm still more likely to control it via my phone for anything but live TV.

[ScumOfTheRoad]

Chromecast is useful when there are two or more of you participating in a Zoom type video conference.
Or it two or more of you want to watch an online lecture or training course. Easier to sit and watch a telly in the corner than put your heads together watching a laptop screen.

[hbunnet]

Chromecast is useful when there are two or more of you participating in a Zoom type video conference.
Or it two or more of you want to watch an online lecture or training course. Easier to sit and watch a telly in the corner than put your heads together watching a laptop screen.

Thanks, that's a useful tip.