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I gave up on Bluetooth at home around a year ago. Not sure what it is, but I'd pretty much have to put my phone right next to the bluetooth speaker for it it w
by linsomniac 9y ago
I gave up on Bluetooth at home around a year ago. Not sure what it is, but I'd pretty much have to put my phone right next to the bluetooth speaker for it it work reliably. Might as well use a cable.
I had high hopes for Google Chromecast Audio for my music at work and at home. Probably my fault for jinxing myself by asking "What could possibly be worse than Bluetooth?" Chromecast Audio has definitively answered that.
For one thing, you can't limit who can interact with the Chromecast. Anyone on the network can see it. At work, my music would usually pause ~4 times a day as someone else's phone would see it and connect to it. I'd have to set up a new wifi network that only I could use to fix this. Since I only listen to music a few hours a day, that's pretty frequent.
It also gets confused if I leave work and then try to use Google Play Music elsewhere: my Google Home in the bathroom will play a song and then stop, I think because "google play is being used on another device", but it doesn't tell you that.
Maybe I should just go back to using something like a Raspberry Pi with access to my music library, it still is mostly songs I have the CDs for and ripped, though I've added probably 50-100 songs over the last year on Google Play, my 600 CDs I have all in FLACs.
- wlesieutre 9y agoI've never used a Chromecast Audio, but their website explicitly mentions a password and a guest mode w/ 4-digit PIN to let other people play music on it. Sounds like yours isn't working as intended, could it be something else causing the pauses? https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/6279388?hl=en https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/6279388?hl=en EDIT: jordanthoms points out that "guest mode" is for letting people stream audio without giving them your wifi password. Once they're on the network everyone has access.
- jordanthoms 9y agoThat's for allowing people to cast to the Chromecast if it's nearby even without connecting to the WiFi - if you are connected to the same WiFi as the Chromecast no password is required.
- wlesieutre 9y agoAh, missed that when I skimmed through. Looks like there's no way to secure it against people who are on the same wifi network.
- vel0city 9y agoThe "guest mode" allows for users not on the WiFi network to see and interact with the Chromecast using WiFi Direct. I do not believe there are any options on the Chromecast itself to limit access to users already on the local WiFi. FWIW, Chromecast Audios are one step further than this, as they do not support this "guest mode" as they do not have a way to display the PIN. Anyone on the WiFi network can freely connect to the device. That said, I have never seen a device automatically connect to a Chromecast or Chromecast Audio. Normally you have to explicitly connect to a Chromecast.
- wlesieutre 9y agoAs described in the linked page, host gets the Chromecast Audio's guest PIN from the Google Home app
- agumonkey 9y agoI remember laughing when I changed the youtube video and then my phone got a notification; indeed anybody on the local network and android home running will be on the party.