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 house 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 immediately 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 laptop.
Most significantly, the revolutionary gizmo solely price $35. This was when an Apple TV set-top field began at $99, and app-laden televisions had 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 exhausting to withstand the Chromecast. And many individuals felt that method: 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 evaluation praised it as a wholehearted advice “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 finest: Innovating in a extremely accessible, inexpensive and device-agnostic method.
What adopted had been years of iterations as opponents pushed out competing merchandise, and Google responded with extra fashionable 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 in the present day, as Google bids adieu to its streaming wunderkind—no less than below its outdated identify. The Google TV Streamer, with its modern wedge form and distinctive hazel coloration possibility, is taking up in a a lot totally different panorama than we noticed 11 years in the past.
The Chromecast, particularly that revolutionary 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 Fireplace TV Stick (additionally in 2014) that price $39.
With out that first Chromecast mannequin, it’s exhausting to inform how that panorama could have regarded totally different within the following years.
It isn’t too late to dip your toes into the nostalgia pool and choose up a Chromecast, as Google says the outdated gadgets 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 stress in the event you not too long ago picked up one of many soon-to-be-extinct gadgets.