One of the things that I like the most as a Geek, is playing with gadgets of all kinds, and one of those that I had tried on some occasions and that I had not had the possibility of owning was the famous Google dondle, which already has a good time on the market, but only recently has it begun to mature enough to attract attention. This article is a review of this great little gadget that can give both an old TV and your cell phone a second life. In the same way, I try to compile a list of some of the best Apps for ChromeCast.
Introduction
To begin, let’s explain a little what Google’s ChromeCast is about. Well, basically it is a device in the form of a USB memory but that connects to an HDMI port of a TV or screen and transforms it into an entertainment center that is controlled by means of a wireless phone, tablet or computer through the WIFI network. ChromeCast is compatible with Android and iOS, and allows you to transmit multimedia content from your device to the screen where it is connected, such as photos, music, videos or even make a real-time transmission of the image of your device, a function known as Screen of Cast or Scren Mirroring.
ChromeCast Unbox
It seems unlikely to get something out of a gadget of these today with the amount of SmartTVs on the market offering all kinds of features included, and although it is true that if you already have the TV of the year full of applications, it is I’m sure that most of the functions that ChromeCast can offer you are already included in your TV. However, there are still some functions that may interest you to encourage you to get one of these small devices, which by the way are not expensive (their price is around 35 dollars). On the other hand, if your TV is not the latest model, or it is not even a SmartTV, it is not necessary to make an expensive investment to have a SmartTV, but simply connect one of these small ones to your normal TV and voila, you have a SmartTV instantly, which can be a good idea when buying a new TV when our budget does not reach us.
Google ChromeCast my experience of use
Personally I was interested in acquiring one of these, to see how much I could get out of it, and finger admit that although at the beginning my expectations were not very high, I must say that in the Google ChromeCast there is a lot of potential.
ChromeCast Home on TV
The first thing I noticed when connecting it to my TV after uncovering it was that the process of pairing the device with your cell phone is very simple, basically you download the App and voila, from then on it is a matter of following instructions on the screen, nothing complicated. Even after the first start, the ChromeCast was automatically updated and I noticed that since the last time I had one of these in my hands (which was not mine), functions that were not available before were enabled, such as the possibility of doing Screen Cast from a Motorola Moto G no need to apply any type of hack, which is great. Also note the incorporation of a new function called “guest mode”, which allows multimedia transfers from devices that are not connected to the same network as the ChromeCast.
To use it requires a free HDMI port and optionally a USB port if you do not want to connect it to the power
Returning to my experience of use, handling ChromeCast is very simple. In Android you simply have to look for Apps that are enabled to share content with ChromeCast and start the transmission at any time. The device will always be listening, waiting to receive multimedia transmissions. Some of the best uses that I have been able to give my ChromeCast so far are the ones described below.
List of Compatible Applications
It is not a complete list at all, but it collects the best I have found so far to get the most out of my ChromeCast, if you know other good apps that are left out of me, you can put them in the comments and we are completing the list together .
On the cell phone
- Watch streaming videos: YouTube is the most obvious of all the functions, and although my TV already had its own YouTube App, this way of using YouTube has been much more comfortable for me, taking control from my cell phone.
Watch YouTube on TV with ChromeCast
The app was not found in the store. ????
- Listen to my favorite music on TV: For this you have a set of good Apps specialized in ChromeCast, being the easiest to use Google Play Music of course. However, if like me you are a fan of Spotify, and you do not have a Premium account to use the native streaming function of the app with ChromeCast, you can get Spoticast, an App that allows you to do the same without being Premium.
Spoticast streaming to ChromeCast
The app was not found in the store. ????
- View files stored on your phone or the cloud: For this there is an all-in-one App called BubleUpnP that allows you to do practically all kinds of transmissions with the ChromeCast, going from being able to see your videos and photos from DropBox or Google Drive, to being able to cast audio. A new function that I like is the one offered by some Apps to make PowerPoint slideshows or show office files on the TV like the one offered by EZCast.
BubleUpnP streaming to ChromeCast
- Watch movies and TV series: For this we have several apps dedicated to streaming feature films, the most popular being Google Play Movies and NetFlix; however if you don’t want to pay a bill, you can also watch movies for free with Crackle, a legal movie streaming service (as long as you don’t mind seeing some advertising).
Google PLay Movies streaming ChromeCast
- Watch anime or read manga: If you like the Japanese animation genre, ChromeCast also has a couple of Apps up its sleeve to give you hours of entertainment. My favorite is UnderAnime, but to use the ChromeCast you must pay a Premium account, so if you want to watch for free on your ChromeCast you can use Crunchyroll (of course with some advertising.
crunchyroll one of the best Apps to watch anume with chromecast
The app was not found in the store. ????
- Make cast screen: Definitely the most powerful function and that can practically do much of what the previously exposed apps expose, is the possibility of seeing and listening in real time the image and sound of your cell phone on the TV. This allows you to experience your games, the browser, your social networks, and anything you want to do with your cell phone or tablet on the big screen.
Share your screen on TV with the official Chromecast APP
- To play: Although the catalog of games compatible with ChromeCast natively (that is, without using the Screen Mirroring function) is not very large, it is expanding and we can already see some good titles to entertain us for a while. One of my favorites in this section is the classic Just Dance Now that can now be played from our cell phone. There is an App called Twitch with which you can see others playing in real time on any side of the planet, in case you like watching more than playing, or if you want to learn from the experts.
Playing Just Dance Now on TV
Just Dance your control is the cell phone
The app was not found in the store. ????
The app was not found in the store. ????
In the PC
- Explore the web from your TV: With the ChromeCast extension for chrome, your computer’s browser is enabled to transmit to the TV what you are seeing in the tab you share. Although it must be clarified that it has some limitations as regards the transmission of video of some pages. This powerful extension enables other Chrome applications to stream to ChromeCast, such as YouTube, Google Play Music, Google+, Google Play movies, and many more.
Icon to share tab on PC
If you are interested in purchasing a ChromeCast, you can do it directly in the Amazon store through the following link.
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