Google’s Chromecast is not any extra. With Tuesday’s introduction of its successor, the corporate laid to relaxation the model that kicked off 11 years in the past with a novel product that helped transfer streaming onto the middle stage of dwelling leisure. With the Google TV Streamer taking the baton, it’s time to look again at 11 years of Chromecast.
Google’s casting-centric model arrived on July 24, 2013, with the first-generation Chromecast. The streaming stick plugged instantly right into a TV’s HDMI port and lacked a distant management. As an alternative, you fired up content material utilizing a cellular machine or pc.
Most significantly, the progressive gizmo solely price $35. This was when an Apple TV set-top field began at $99, and app-laden televisions have been nowhere close to commonplace. Even Roku’s same-generation Streaming Stick, which landed a 12 months earlier, price $100. Oh, and it required a TV licensed as “Roku-ready.”
When confronted with pricier choices, it was laborious to withstand the Chromecast. And many individuals felt that means: The stick shortly bought out. And it hung round for longer than most tech merchandise, as the corporate solely retired it final 12 months.
Engadget applauded the machine. Our evaluate praised it as a wholehearted suggestion “for anyone who’s been looking for an easy, unobtrusive way to put some brains into their dumb TV.” The machine was Google at its greatest: Innovating in a extremely accessible, inexpensive and device-agnostic means.
What adopted have been years of iterations as opponents pushed out competing merchandise, and Google responded with extra trendy options and redesigns.
The second-gen mannequin from 2015 switched to a dongle kind issue with a magnetized again and HDMI plug. The identical 12 months, Google launched a music-focused sister machine, Chromecast Audio (with a vinyl record-inspired look). Chromecast Extremely, the primary stab at a higher-end mannequin, landed in 2016 with 4K streaming and Dolby Imaginative and prescient assist. A 3rd-gen mannequin adopted in 2018 with sooner speeds, Nest speaker integration… and never a lot else.
This decade, we noticed the awkwardly branded Chromecast with Google TV (4K) in 2020 — now with a distant!! — and the Chromecast with Google TV (HD) in 2022. In hindsight, the unusual naming might now be seen as the corporate’s first nudge towards a rebrand.
This brings us to right this moment, as Google bids adieu to its streaming wunderkind—a minimum of beneath its outdated identify. The Google TV Streamer, with its glossy wedge form and distinctive hazel colour possibility, is taking up in a a lot totally different panorama than we noticed 11 years in the past.
The Chromecast, particularly that progressive first-generation mannequin, helped push us into the streaming-first world many people have lived in ever since. That’s very true when you think about its influence on opponents. Roku’s second-generation Streaming Stick from 2014 dropped from $99 to $50 and ditched its doomed “Roku Ready TV” requirement. In the meantime, Amazon noticed a gap and launched a Hearth TV Stick (additionally in 2014) that price $39.
With out that first Chromecast mannequin, it’s laborious to inform how that panorama might have seemed totally different within the following years.
It isn’t too late to dip your toes into the nostalgia pool and decide up a Chromecast, as Google says the outdated units will stay available on the market whereas provides final. Crucially, the corporate’s promise of safety updates and assist stays unchanged, so there’s no want to worry in the event you not too long ago picked up one of many soon-to-be-extinct units.