I’ve always said that few tech products have better value for money than the Google Chromecast, it’s been the device I’ve used the longest. Specific, He’s been active on one of my TVs since 2013; year when Google launched it on the market and year when I imported it from the United States via Amazon. To this day, and despite the fact that it has officially become obsolete, this Google Chromecast is still as alive as on the first day.
I remember that summer of 2013. Shortly after my birthday, Google unveiled the second generation of one of the best Android tablets of all time: the 2013 Nexus 7. And it didn’t come alone, a device of which we knew nothing. appeared suddenly without claiming undue attention, as if Google had developed it as a simple addition to its hardware catalog: the original Chromecast. Although it doesn’t have the aura of a revolutionary, this small media player was Google’s greatest innovation in the field of electronic devices. And he ended up forging the marriage between smartphone and television.
The biggest plus was being cheap. The second, to become immortal
My Chromecast is almost ten years old
At the time, Google was pricing it at $35, a cost that carried over once the original Chromecast was released to the rest of the world. Me, as I am impatient, I decided to import it in August 2013 at a slightly more expensive price; which, without a doubt, still seems cheap to me: this HDMI skewer it has become the center of my multimedia consumption in the living room. First for YouTube, then for Netflix and all the content I had on my Android.
As is often the case with products that have just arrived on the market, the Chromecast started with reduced compatibility. You can send YouTube videos to TV from your phone and not much else. Although it didn’t take long to expand its compatibility to the rest of the web, also to most streaming platforms: if there’s one coming out without Chromecast support, it doesn’t take long to include it. For them, it has become a must.
Thanks to the fact that Chromecast support is almost a multimedia standard, I’ve been sending videos, music, photos, and even mobile screen projection for years. With the simplicity of choosing the connected Chromecast from the corner of the phone and controlling playback from said mobile: simple, cheap and almost universal, the three keys that made the success of Chromecast
Yes, Google will no longer update the mythical original Chromecast, this small HDMI skewer that served as the basis for multimedia content shared from cell phones, tablets and even computers. And, despite the fact that he was left without support, my Google Chromecast from 2013 keeps playing the same content I’ve been sending you for years.
My Google Chromecast will work for a few more years
The fact that a device becomes officially obsolete by losing support does not imply that it loses all its usefulness, especially in the field where Google Chromecast operates: since the video and audio codecs it uses are a standard on the website, is guaranteed to keep working much longer
It helps me cast the mobile screen on the TV where I don’t have my Nvidia Shield with Android TV and it even works on my in-laws old Smart TV: just plug it into an HDMI free, power it from a USB of the TV itself and set it up with my Google Home app. And not even that: if I configure it with the hotspot of the phone starts in less than a minute everywhere I go, even abroad. Let’s see what decade-old electronic device can say that.
I can get my Google Chromecast to work instantly just by installing it to a TV’s HDMI. almost ten years
I think the Google Chromecast is the best purchase I’ve made in my entire life, I can’t think of any other that has given me so much profitability throughout its useful life. It’s not over, even if Google has turned its back on it: my Chromecast still has many years ahead of it.
In Xataka Android | The perfect app for your Chromecast
