Chromecast

A few months ago Google shook things up a little by releasing the Chromecast upon us. It's a small streaming device that plugs directly into your television's HDMI port, and acts entirely wirelessly. Chromecast was a bit different than other streaming boxes in its simplicity: plug directly into HDMI, no inputs, just a single micro-USB port on it and it has no interface of its own. See, the Chromecast puts itself into a ready state, allowing other devices to send content to it. So anyone on my wireless network could theoretically open their YouTube app on their phone/tablet/computer and start playing it on the big screen. It's a rather simple device, but quite elegant, and at $35 it was exactly what I was looking for.

Unfortunately, the device is not available in Canada, and Google seems to have forgotten about us up here.
In addition to tech news sites, I would check the Play store every day for availability, only to be let down over and over again. There were other options: buy it online through Amazon.com (not the .CA store) or drive down and pick one up at retail. Well, I must not have needed it as badly as I thought, because I wouldn't do either. Until earlier this week, I get a call from my friend. He's take the family down across the border for a day trip and picked up a couple of Chromecasts. On his way home he dropped it off, and it couldn't have come at a better time.

I've been watching a lot of online video recently, over the past few months. It's come a long way. There are numerous channels on YouTube that I subscribe to and check for new content on a regular basis. Ever since getting the Nexus 7 tablet, I've been prone to browsing the videos section of Reddit and generally neglecting any serialized shows and movies. When the Chromecast came out, I knew it would be perfect: browse for the videos on the tablet, and show them on the big screen. Especially handy for sharing videos amongst a room of people. It would be perfect. But without the device, I had to try other means: namely, the YouTube app on XBMC, which is installed on a home theatre PC connected to the television.

Being at home sick for the day, I used the app on XBMC liberally. Recently, I changed my e-mail address and thought it would be a good time to update which account the app uses. This was a big mistake. The app is flaky enough on it's own, that I've learned it's best to leave it alone if it is working. For the life of me I couldn't get it to connect to my new account, and I wasn't about to fool around too much with the system (that is, the XBMC install) in fear that the damage would spiral out of control. If you've ever setup XBMC and had some issues, you'll know what I'm talking about (although it's much better these days). I resolved to install an app that allowed me to add channels, but it wasn't tied to any Google account. A few hours later, the phone call came in and my Chromecast experience would begin - right on time.

It really was as easy as they said to set it up. Plug it in (and plug in the USB cable for power - my television set isn't new enough to sport the latest HDMI powered outlets) and install the Chromecast app on my Nexus 7. It does an ad-hoc wireless connection, then connects to the main wireless network in the house after entering some credentials. It reboots itself, downloads a system update and I'm off running four minutes later. Streaming items to it couldn't be easier. Once YouTube is open, I choose the output device and it just works and I can take the video back right away.

Other devices don't seem to have an issue connecting - YouTube on my iPad, or Chrome on my laptop. I haven't tried putting the entire browser window on it, but I feel that will be a less used feature. Not to mention that if I want to do that, there are many other devices that are capable (HTPC, mainly). The Chromecast is simple, unobtrusive and capable. It's a no brainer for me to be putting one on each television in the house.