I finally got around to picking up a Chromecast. I had read some reviews so I didn’t have any high expectations, but I couldn’t resist the urge to tinker with it given its price point. Boy was I disappointed….
The instructions it came with made it look like it was going to be the easiest thing
I ever hooked up. The physical hookup was simple enough, but then it came time
to get it hooked up to my wireless. I don’t have anything fancy, just a Linksys
E3200 with WPA2/WPA Mixed Mode security. I’ve hooked up a ton of devices
and never had any issues.
The Chromecast App was useless. It could see my Chromecast, but I just kept getting a grey exclamation mark with a message saying it couldn’t connect. I went back and forth with the online help and the only useful thing I found was the link to the web based setup instructions located at https://cast.google.com/chromecast/setup?np=manualsetup. With this I was able able to get a little further. I got as far as it displaying a 4 letter code for me to confirm. Once I did that, it failed to connect again. What!?!?! You can obviously connect, since you just synced up that 4 letter code!!! A bunch of google searching and nothing useful. Finally for no good reason other than a lucky guess, I changed the network type on my Laptop –> Chromecast wifi network from Public to Home.
Once I made that switch the Web based setup got a little bit further and it prompted me for my wireless password. Entered and it failed to connect… For kicks I tried the application again, it was still useless, so back to the web based setup.
I ended up having to power off the Chromecast one more time and then running through the setup wizard again. Finally I had it hooked up the wireless. While I can appreciate the target audience probably needs the «magic config» I really wish they would have just given me the «I know what the eff I’m doing» option and just entered my wifi info directly.
Once I had it connected, the native casting support in YouTube worked really well I have a YouTube app native on my TV and the quality of the Chromecast was better than the native app. Sadly, the «cast my Chrome tab» option didn’t have the same quality. I tried to play a recent episode of the The Big Bang Theory, but the quality was terrible and it kept freezing. It was not watchable.
The next test I did was to stream the Thursday Night Football game from nfl.com This was a little better but still pretty choppy. I was able to reduce the choppiness by dropping the quality down to 480p. Given that I cut the cord a while back, the fact that I was able to watch a game that was not broadcast on one of the national network channels was pretty cool. The game was watchable (its playing as I write this), but its certainly not a great experience.
So at the end of the day, the only thing I would consider a success was the YouTube integration, but given I have the YouTube native app on my TV, I really don’t feel like I gained anything. If your a techy/gadget person its worth the $35 as something fun to play with, but as of right now I struggle to see it being a valuable addition to my media consumption choices.