• cygnus@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    “Google kills Chromecast and replaces it with something that it will also kill and replace in a few years”

    I made the mistake of buying Google Homes years ago. They got badly nerfed last year — Google removed the ability to read recipes out loud, which is the main thing I used it for. They also crippled the API so that I can no longer add tasks to Todoist. I’m never buying another Google product.

  • alekwithak@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    If I wanted a streaming box I’d buy or build a streaming box. If I wanted anyone with my remote control to be able to access my YouTube viewing history and all my streaming accounts I’d make it happen. What I want is a cheap dongle that my family and guests can use to quickly share media to the big screen!

    • catloaf@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Isn’t that what a Chromecast is? The one I have, you just connect to the wifi and it shows up as a cast target. It doesn’t do anything else.

      • alekwithak@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yes but they discontinued them in favor of Google TV, and they also heavily nerfed the capabilities by putting Google TV apps on there. For instance I now often have to pull out the virtual remote in the YouTube app to make a pop-up go away so I can watch the YouTube video I cast.

        • Albbi@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          Try out Smarttubenext. Made watching YouTube on my chromecast with Google TV enjoyable again.

          • alekwithak@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I have five from multiple generations, so I’m very aware. They changed this functionality on all of them. I never said they didn’t still work, and I gave a clear example of how the functionality is being nerfed.

            • catloaf@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              They haven’t changed the functionality on mine as far as I’ve noticed. It’s still a cheap dongle that people can use to quickly share media to the screen. Is that not what you wanted?

              • alekwithak@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                When they released Google TV they implemented the full apps into Chromecast so it went from just a video playing client to an extremely underpowered streaming stick, without a Google TV remote a lot of the players were broken and because it’s an out of production out of support device you are stuck with whatever crippled functionality they leave us. I tried to set one up for my wife a couple of weeks ago and she couldn’t cast certain YouTube videos to it because it was prompting her to sign it but the sign-in functionality has been broken for two years now. If your device has somehow avoided any updates you have a gem, that thing would fetch a handsome sum on eBay.

                Is it still a cheap dongle that people can use to quickly share media to the screen? Yes, that’s why I have five. I’d like them to support and keep making them.

        • pixxelkick@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I own multiple gens of Chromecasts from gen 1 to to CCwGTV

          I have no idea wtf you are talking about.

          I click cast, I click the device I’m casting to, it works, never had this issue on any of my devices abd all of them are set to auto update and afaik running latest versions.

          • alekwithak@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            That’s fantastic for you, but a quick Google search will bring up plenty of articles and reddit threads of people bitching about this and other ways the Chromecast has been broken over the years.

            • pixxelkick@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              I have no idea what people are fucking up tbh.

              It’s 2 button clicks to cast stuff, I just went and sanity checked.

              The internet is full of disinformation and idiots though so I usually just assume people are the issue, when I have the same hardware and zero issues.

              I don’t think chromecasts have even gotten any kind of major change updates in ages so it’s bizarre for it to change behavior.

              I’m gonna just keep going with “people are dumb” until someone posts some concrete example (IE an actual video) of wtf their issue is.

              The chromecast is designed so simply though that I can’t imagine wtf people are fucking up.

  • Chris@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Is there any open source chrome cast? I know of one project but it required a special server as well. I just want to plug something into my HDMI port so I can cast dumb YouTube videos, why does it have to be this hard.

    • riquisimo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      All I want is something that I can put on a raspberry pi, and then from my phone use the “share” menu to share a URL to some app that communicates with the pi and plays the video URL.

      Why doesn’t that exist yet? Share YouTube video to rasp. Pi, then have and controls on the phone app.

    • j4yt33@feddit.org
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      1 year ago

      I don’t know if Kodi is still around, I used it years ago on a raspberry pi. Bit of a faff but if YouTube is all you need then it should be good enough. Or maybe a second hand Chromebook?

  • butter@midwest.social
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    1 year ago

    ITT: People who don’t know as much as me.

    All they killed was the branding. The Chromecast with Google TV was such a far cry from an OG Chromecast that it was stupid for them to have the same name.

    OG Chromecast could only cast and did not have a remote. The CCwGT did still support casting, but also had a remote and a real UI.

    The TV streamer is just the CCwGT in a fancy shell with probably a more powerful processor. I’ll bet money that it still supports casting, and can only do pretty much exactly what the CCwGT could do.

    • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, the google TV dongle has been the mainline product for like 5 years at this point. Honestly it’s pretty good because it means I don’t have to let my TV connect to the internet so it cant download ads.

  • Teknikal@eviltoast.org
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    1 year ago

    Seems like most of the streaming hardware companies (amazon/roku/Google) are going out of their way to make products worse. Someone’s probably going to take their lunch and they’ll all act shocked about it.

    Seems a dangerous game to play with so many Asian alternatives and sbc computers getting to the point they could do that job.

    Don’t get me wrong this box isn’t horrible just really overpriced for the old specs.

  • radiohead37@lemmynsfw.com
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    1 year ago

    I don’t invest my time in Google products anymore. Right now Gmail is the last Google service I still use.