15 ms·
Google cans the Chromecast Audio
- geephroh 8y agoBummer -- sold out already...
- radus 8y agoUnfortunately, I didn't really know I wanted one for myself and also for family until right now, especially at the $15 price point. It seems like these are selling out in a lot of stores, but I wonder if it's smart to buy one when they'll probably no longer receive updates.
- dsr_ 8y agoIt's not that it won't receive updates. It's that when Google turns off some support servers somewhere, they will all stop working.
- bootloop 8y agoChromecast Audio is the same as Chromecast built-in. There are tons of devices, this ecosystem is not gonna die anytime soon. Doesn't matter if Google ships their own hardware or not.
- jbob2000 8y agoThis is disappointing. This device would have allowed millions of old stereo systems to enter into the modern age. Now? They will be thrown out, can't compete with the Google Home!
- hammock 8y agoHow of those old stereo systems still exist?
- flavor8 8y agoCouple it with this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0071HZ5LE/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0071HZ5LE/ and you've got a great low profile audio system that anybody can connect to with their phone for around $50. We've got that pair in our gym in the basement.
- Insanity 8y agoHigh end audio equipment lasts a long time
- Thriptic 8y agoYup, my parents had many in wall / ceiling speakers wired up to a receiver that they sort of forgot about because the system only received input from a 30 pin ipod dock and no one ever bothered to figure out how the receiver was configured. I pulled that interface out and replaced it with a chromecast audio and it blew their minds. It was probably the biggest ROI I've ever gotten out of any tech project I've ever done for them. I'm very sad they are discontinuing this product. I was actually about to buy one for my new apartment. It looks like they are sold out everywhere already :(
- pjc50 8y ago> 30 pin ipod dock This was one of Apple's great inventions, it became widespread in hotels, every base station used it - so having achieved massive adoption they obsoleted it.
- jessaustin 8y agoThe things that big firms do over and over, they don't do by mistake...
- PeanutNore 8y agoMy stereo is from 1979. For the last 30 years mainstream audio equipment has been in a race to the bottom on BOM cost and build quality. A well made stereo receiver from 1975-1985 will, when paired with the right speakers, greatly outperform the majority of modern listening devices.
- ucaetano 8y agoI'd imagine not enough owners of those old stereos cared enough to buy the product and keep it viable over the past 3 and a half years.
- achamayou 8y agoThere are a bazillion of Bluetooth receivers out there, Google neither invented those nor was particularly good at making them.
- foobarandgrill 8y agoNot really the same. With chromecast audio I could cast google play music, spotify, etc. to it from my device and the chromecast itself would be streaming the music. With bluetooth you have to stream music to it from your device so it uses up the device's battery life and also the audio quality would be degraded.
- vinw 8y agoIt's not a bluetooth receiver
- sciurus 8y agoOne advantage Amazon's Echo Dot has over Google's Home Mini is that the Echo Dot has a 3.mm connector in addition to bluetooth, so you can easily connect it to your existing speakers or receiver. Right now the 3rd-gen Echo Dot is $30 and the 2nd-gen is $25.
- amanzi 8y agoCan you stream to an Echo Dot from any/many music apps on your phone like the Chromecast? Or do you have to control everything by voice?
- zalthor 8y agoI have it set up so that it connects to my phone via bluetooth, and I output audio from whatever service I want on my phone. Also, you can get it to connect to your phone via a voice command ("Alexa connect <device name>"), when you want to use it.
- jenscow 8y agoYou can use the Echo as a bluetooth speaker.
- sciurus 8y agoYou can. In the spotify app on my phone or computer I can choose an echo dot (or group of multiple alexa devices) as the output device. Alternately, you can pair with an echo dot and use it as a bluetooth speaker.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- evan_ 8y agoI use Spotify, all of my Echo devices show up as different outputs in the Spotify app, along with the groups I've set up ("Everywhere").
- evan_ 8y ago
- Roritharr 8y agoI love my Chromecast Audio Setup. It was amazing to create a very cheap multi room setup for our Office Opening Party, literally orchestrating all the speakers I could find into one large group was like magic. So cheap compared to alternative solutions, i'll try to pick a few up if I can, as I expect them to work for atleast a few more years.
- semi-extrinsic 8y agoWe have a few around the house, connected to various speakers. Never had any trouble with them. I'll be buying a few more now before the price bumps, don't wanna be stuck in the Logitech Squeezebox misery again. My only complaint is that they can't be grouped with a regular Chromecast, but AFAICT that's a hardware issue (regular Chromecast doesn't have the bits necessary for synchronising with low enough latency).
- thesandlord 8y agoRegular Chromecast (Gen 2 and above) can now be added to groups too! https://chromeunboxed.com/news/chromecast-video-and-smart-displays-can-now-join-speaker-groups/ https://chromeunboxed.com/news/chromecast-video-and-smart-di...
- semi-extrinsic 8y agoThis just makes no sense. A feature the community has been shouting about for years and years (literally hundreds of posts on Google product forums), and then they actually launch it less than two months before discontinuing the product line??
- derefr 8y agoMore like, now that regular Chromecasts can do it, why even have Chromecast Audio as a separate product any more? It's all just Chromecast now.
- 8y ago
- ericd 8y agoDammit, just bought one of these with their holiday 75% off sale.
- adrianmonk 8y agoWell, there are tons of third-party Chromecast target devices, including several speakers. I suppose it's possible one of those companies may step in and develop a similar product to fill the gap.
- amanzi 8y agoThat's my hope too. Love my Chromecast Audio.
- jgrowl 8y agoI was excited to set a bunch of these up around the house a couple of years back. I set them up in every room in the house. Then I realized you could not cast just the audio from youtube videos (without YouTube Red or whatever). I could cast from youtube audio from my desktop computer to all of them through an open source app. It never worked like how I had envisioned in my mind with everything being seamless. We also ran into the bug where having too many chromecast devices attached to the same network would spam the router, preventing some devices from connecting. It would happen randomly and it took a while to figure out that this was the problem. There were other reliability issues and other minor annoyances that just made me give up on the idea. Now I begrudgingly use an amazon firestick on the tv. The idea was awesome, it's just that Google did not provide a reliable product and pointlessly limited its own hardware's capabilities to sell their monthly service.
- goldenkey 8y agoReposting again - earlier in the thread someone posted a solution: "By the way, it's easy to cast audio only from YouTube or any other app - just go to the Google Home app and cast your phone's audio to the device or group." Edit: Would whoever is downvoting me for providing assistance, please explain your reasoning?
- pidg 8y agoI went wild and bought four of these, to have a high-quality multi-room audio setup on the cheap. The trouble is, it almost never worked - I'd have two rooms working, or it would fall over after one song, or after three songs, or not work at all. I don't know whether the product was fatally flawed, or Google just didn't put the investment into making it work, but it would have been great if it wasn't so broken.
- TulliusCicero 8y agoI had the same experience. Also, I used them with standard portable bluetooth speakers, but even plugged in they'd turn off after a bit, which removed the whole plan of "spontaneously broadcast music through the house just whenever".
- unethical_ban 8y agoI still use mine. Do you use the iPhone or an Android client? I find that Google Home sometimes needs to be started for devices to be seen. I may need to buy a few more before they are gone completely.
- AgentME 8y agoA month ago, my regular Google Home (which basically includes all of the Chromecast Audio functionality) would very frequently randomly stop playing music when a song ended. Maybe it would be able to play about 3 songs on average before stopping. It was the main thing I'd do with my Google Homes so I was pretty mad. But the issue suddenly went away about a month ago, sooo that's cool I guess.
- freedomben 8y agoSame. I did some troubleshooting and it had to do with the Google Home thinking another device (my phone) was using my google play music. Luckily they fixed it.
- xd1936 8y agoWeird, mine works great. What service is your source of audio?
- xahrepap 8y agoChromecast Audio frustrates me so much. I bought one and hooked it up to my whole-house system combined with a few other fancy things so that people in the house could theoretically cast music or whatever else to whatever room in the house. Basically, I can only use it with Google Music. I rarely can use it for other things because it will only cast a subset of things that support casting. For example, I can't cast YouTube to it, because it doesn't support video. But what if want everyone in the room to hear what I'm playing and the video is irrelevant? I'm considering buying an HDMI->DVI/Audio adapter and just using a standard Chrome Cast. I feel like Google had the right idea here. But just missed the mark.
- philsnow 8y ago> I'm considering buying an HDMI->DVI/Audio adapter and just using a standard Chrome Cast. I did exactly this about 6 years ago, worked fine. Shame to cast all those video bits through your wifi contention just to throw them away at the adapter, though.
- derefr 8y agoIn the cases where the video is static, there are relatively few video bits. An MP4 on YouTube that just displays the album art is about the same size as an M4A.
- geitir 8y agoNot really
- mavhc 8y agoMy problem is the Chromecast (plugged into AV amp) turns on the TV (via CEC), and if you turn off the TV, the Chromecast stops
- ndiscussion 8y agoI haven't used mine in over a year due to audio stuttering issues, but you can get a browser extension to cast anything on a desktop. I believe Firefox on Android may also support casting (along with ad blocking and an extension to play Youtube in the background by removing the page visibility api)
- martian 8y agoBummer. I own one and use it every day for listening to high quality audio on an old stereo setup. The sound quality is so great! I routinely buy these for friends/family who want better digital audio setups and they tend to work great. I’ve never had any issues. The best feature is “Ok, Google, play X.” When combined with Spotify’s amazing music index (really good for rare recordings/composers/etc), this is a super powerful mechanism to play any music at high quality. Best of all I can do it without needing to look at my phone and fend off the distractions there.
- 1zee 8y agoJust to clarify, that "Ok, Google" feature requires a Google Assistant device like a Home Mini (or your phone) as the Chromecast Audio has no microphone.
- NicoJuicy 8y agoDon't really know why it's canned though. I thought it was a great iterative product. Before this, didn't think they could do something like the Chromecast again (hardware whise). But the Chromecast Audio is just so simple and effective. I'm really curious about the sales numbers, to understand why they canned it. Otherwhise, it doesn't make business sense. I have like 5 chromecast's laying around and dealing them to family/friends for gifts. To some, even just because i think they will love it. Even after a year, suddenly someone starts to use it (this was the normal Chromecast) and they start to love it. It's one of the reasons i can say a lot: "told you :p" PS. If anyone of Google would read this, would love to have a license on the Chromecast audio. I'm a small webshow owner that actually recommends quite a lot of Google products as a Software Developer. PS2. You can't get a yes, if you don't ask it :p
- whyaduck 8y agoI've got 3 of these in my house already, and I was thinking of picking up a couple more as back-ups, but they're already sold out on the Google store. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any other small, "cast-able" device that has a digital output. Hopefully mine last for a while.
- parched 8y agoI'm really disappointed that Google has decided to do this. I've been using these all over my house for a couple of years now and, at least for Google Play Music and Tune-In Radio, they work really well. When the price dropped recently, and there was speculation they would be discontinued, I bought another four of them for my own use and for gifts. They're not really comparable to Bluetooth receivers. The killer feature is synchronized multi-room audio without paying exorbitant prices for proprietary speakers (Sonos I'm looking at you...). I have them hooked up to powered speakers (PC 2.1 style) in the bedroom and bathroom, a mini-stereo on the deck, a ghetto blaster in my workshop and my media room AV amplifier. For parties it's fantastic to have seamless audio around the whole house. I have to wonder why Google did this. It seems like a strategic move to push people towards their "smart" speakers. Personally I really don't want something with a microphone in it, just good quality sound at a good price. Very sad. By the way, it's easy to cast audio only from YouTube or any other app - just go to the Google Home app and cast your phone's audio to the device or group.
- willio58 8y agoAs strategic as it seems, they probably just didn’t sell well enough to justify continued effort. Also purchasing a gift when it’s price is slashed due to it probably being discontinued is.. risky to say the least.
- puzzle 8y agoI agree. It's probably because sales were trending down. That said, nothing stops another company from stepping in and taking a license for a smart speaker without neither the microphone nor the speaker, in a tiny form factor...
- kllrnohj 8y ago> That said, nothing stops another company from stepping in and taking a license for a smart speaker without neither the microphone nor the speaker, in a tiny form factor There's already a bunch of audio-only Cast-enabled products without a microphone. There's no need to license google assistant just to get cast. Speakers & receivers with cast built-in has been a thing for a few years now. The dongle was just an upgrade path while the broader ecosystem built up.
- Walkman 8y agoI would not buy anything from Google at this point. Definitely will not use anything else except Gmail.
- magicalist 8y ago> I would not buy anything from Google at this point. The only consequence here seems to be if you wanted to buy one but now you can't, but I don't see how not buying something gives a lesson about buying things? It's not like Chromecast is going away.
- coldtea 8y ago>The only consequence here seems to be if you wanted to buy one but now you can't, but I don't see how not buying something gives a lesson about buying things? Many people not buying stuff from company who discontinues things gives a lesson about not discontinuing stuff.
- mavhc 8y agoWell, more like a lesson in not starting to sell stuff
- jellicle 8y agoThe Chromecast audio does one thing and does it (pretty) well. You can connect it to any dumb thing you have lying around. I am not going to buy an eavesdropping microphone setup for my house, so if that's all Google will sell, I guess I'll find another path for music.
- i386 8y agoI’ve just adopted Google Wifi (love it) but I’m afraid that they will get bored and discontinue it.
- kefabean 8y agoTotally gutted, these are amazing devices and great value. After ‘enjoying’ years of hackery with Squeezebox, I eventually plumped for Chromecast Audio as the hassle-free way to get Spotify plus BBC iPlayer radio controlled via native iOS apps. I can also verify they are capable of bit-perfect optical audio out from appropriate flac source files etc, so perfect for the big speakers. RIP.
- Symbiote 8y agoI have one connected to my amplifier and speakers — it's the only thing connected, I don't need any other audio source. I run miniDLNA[1] which shares all my music, and BubbleUPnP[2] on my phone to browse the music and cast it to the Chromecast Audio. It's also possible with a Python library[3]; I used this for a while as an alarm clock. About every 2-3 months I have to reboot the Chromecast, but it's otherwise fine. It doesn't do gapless playback, but I think that's partly because miniDLNA is running on an ultra-low-power ARM board, i.e. is slow. [1] https://sourceforge.net/projects/minidlna/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/minidlna/ [2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bubblesoft.android.bubbleupnp&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bubblesoft... [3] https://github.com/balloob/pychromecast https://github.com/balloob/pychromecast
- mattlondon 8y agoSame miniDLNA (running off of a gen1 Raspberry Pi + NAS) and BubbleUPnP. Works great - BubbleUPnP is the only app I've actually bought for my phone. Recently had an xmas do with the music around the house casting simultaneously via various Cast devices and it worked great.
- abootstrapper 8y agoGoogle is really developing a reputation for starting and canning projects. I’d recommend not getting too invested in their products when possible.
- mmmmmmmmm 8y agoEvery company discontinues products. There's a reason you can't buy this thing anymore: https://keyassets-p2.timeincuk.net/wp/prod/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2017/02/first-mobile-phone-1202x1620.jpg https://keyassets-p2.timeincuk.net/wp/prod/wp-content/upload...
- ergothus 8y agoI've steered clear of a few now, both in tech and as a consumer. I've been burned too many times by the same company here.
- disishhsha 8y agoDo they really do this more than other companies? Does the average successful company make a habit of keeping unsuccessful products around?
- azurezyq 8y agoApple discontinued ipod nano, what's the difference here? Consumer electronics come and go, just following the market trend.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- pugz 8y agoThe iPod Nano lasted 12 years. The Chromecast Audio lasted 3 and a bit.
- azurezyq 8y agoiPod is a successful one. Chromecast audio is not. How long do you want to keep a not successful product around if you own the company? My girlfriend poured so much love in her iPhone SE and it seems like... discontinued.
- TheRealWatson 8y agoThe only Chromecast Audio I've owned was a mistake. I thought I was buying a real Chromecast at a very good price. I was so disappointed that I just dropped it in the trash immediately.
- r2ut3u 8y agomay be now is the time we stop discussing about google canning different projects google has already developed a reputation for abruptly stopping services google reader google plus allo google talk hangouts here is a list of projects google abandoned https://gcemetery.co/ https://gcemetery.co/ it's a shame they do build products half-heartedly
- notatoad 8y agoHopefully this means an updated Google Home Mini with a line-out jack is around the corner.
- turdnagel 8y agoI would love an AirPlay 2 receiver equivalent of the Chromecast Audio. I know the ancient Airport Express can do it, but it's wireless capabilities are lacking (802.11n or g might be the best it can do.) Anyone know of one?
- newman314 8y agoI use the Express in wired only mode and it’s the best solution that I have found so far for an easy $25 (aggressive negotiation on Craigslist :)
- justatdotin 8y agosad: I had a really good thing going with these to a miniDigi/miniDSP/miniAmp stack for power-efficient portable speakers. was gonna build more using beocreate; not quite sure now which way to jump... anyone know of a similar device that includes TOSlink out?
- bedros 8y agoif two adjacent rooms playing chromecast or dlna client, is there any synchronization of played sound, so you don't hear delay of music between of the two rooms
- ladon86 8y agoYes, I have 3 Chromecast audios and 2 Google Homes and they all play in sync throughout the house.
- mattlondon 8y agoSame sort of set up here. You can even adjust a delay (e.g. +/- 10ms etc) if the timing is slightly out as well as individual volumes for each speaker individually from the home app. The multiroom audio really is superb. Shame it is going away - hopefully it will be replaced by something else decent.
- snthd 8y agoI hope Google enables the possibility of third party firmware before eventually bricking them. Streaming (even locally) is impossible without Google blessing the connection initialisation.
- rickcogley 8y agoMaybe it means that they are coming up with something else new? It's their right to stop producing something or kill ("sunset") whatever product, but it doesn't make it any less crappy.
- dbcooper 8y agoA lot of amplifiers are integrating Chromecast these days.
- drtz 8y agoI had planned on building out a home audio system using Chromecast Audios w/ small amplifiers distributed around the house. I even did a test run with my patio speakers and it worked out great. Now I'm going to have to rethink things.
- hashkb 8y agoThis is a real shame. And shameless... I want to keep using Google smart things but I don't want to give up my high quality analog gear. Being able to Chromecast to a channel on my band's mixing board is super handy for practice. I hope the handful I have don't die.
- laurynas-s 8y agoGoogle is getting worse and worse with each new news headline. They have completely lost my trust of using their non-primary services. However, the monopoly is so high that's it's difficult for other companies to compete.
- glennpratt 8y agoThis is one product in a large line, not an entire service. There are also tons of competitors in this space.
- luckydata 8y agoGood, that was the dumbest thing Google ever produced, and I'm writing this comment from a Pixel 3.
- veesahni 8y agoAs an alternative: Google Home Mini can pair with bluetooth aux receivers ( https://www.amazon.com/s?k=bluetooth+receiver+aux https://www.amazon.com/s?k=bluetooth+receiver+aux ) which can be connected to dumb speakers. End result is similar to chromecast audio (but not audiophile grade). Maybe a future version of Google Home Mini will add an audio out.
- ratling 8y agoSo I had one of these. I couldn't give it away when I was getting rid of stuff. The problem with chromecast audio is that pretty much nothing supported chromecast audio. Anything you would potentially use with audio you'd be better off running through a regular chromecast (including spotify which only worked on audio with a premium account, free accounts work on regular chromecast normally and you could always push the web player from chrome). I don't understand who this was supposed to be marketed to. Chromecast users probably already have a good sound setup on their TV. Audiophiles aren't going to buy it since it only had a 3.5mm jack on it. Anyone else is just going to use bluetooth whatever. I get why they made it. I also get why it failed.
- SyneRyder 8y ago> Audiophiles aren't going to buy it since it only had a 3.5mm jack on it Apparently the Chromecast Audio supports optical digital output, but Google never seemed very good at publicizing that feature. They had some instructions hidden under "Compatible cables and plugs" here: https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/6280276 https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/6280276 (That said, I just double-checked my studio monitors & they only have analog XLR & 1/4" inputs anyway.)
- ratling 8y agoI do vaguely remember seeing that in some documentation but yeah, if no one knows it exists and all you see is a generic 3.5mm it essentially doesn't exist.
- Symbiote 8y agoI have one which I use to play my own music — an open source media server plus an Android app which I think I paid for. (See my other comment.) However, friends have no problem using it with Spotify, the local public broadcast system app, or a local music streaming app. I think there just aren't enough audiophiles who were aware this existed. Some friends bought them after seeing my setup, but it wasn't advertised, and most products at a similar price sound awful. (Also, in my experience people aren't really aware just how bad their Bluetooth speaker sounds, as they haven't compared it to even a cheap hifi system. I used to give away 3.5mm to RCA cables so people could connect their TV to external speakers, no-one failed to appreciate the improvement.)
- fredley 8y agoGoogle really does have a habit of killing good products to make way for worse ones. Reader killed for Plus. Inbox (to be) killed for Gmail (still dreading this, I'm hanging on to Inbox till the end), and now Chromecast audio killed for Home. Yeah, the latter products serve Google better, but they serve me worse. I think 2019 will be the year I start really trying to untangle my life from Google to the extent I can delete my account.
- yaseer 8y agoI'm also dreading the switch back to gmail. Inbox is so clean, and gmail is so cluttered. When I first saw Inbox, I thought "finally, Google gives gmail the UI refresh it needs". Now it's gone, and we'll be back to the anxiety-inducing interface again.
- fredley 8y agoIt was great with Serif-Google, and the implicit approach of "let's make cool stuff and worry if it makes money never" (since making money is not exactly a problem). Now with Sans-serif-Google cool stuff that doesn't make money must be culled to make way for stuff that does, or at least furthers strategic goals. Unfortunately that's just the way the game is played at that level, and the CEOs at the top are all playing by the same rules. I miss Serif-Google.
- squarefoot 8y agoProbably doomed to die anyway since there already was a better and much more open competitor: https://www.cnx-software.com/2016/01/11/audiocast-m5-is-a-chromecast-audio-alternative-with-local-audio-files-and-multi-room-support/ https://www.cnx-software.com/2016/01/11/audiocast-m5-is-a-ch...
- pmx 8y agoThat page says Chromecast doesn't do multiroom synchronized streaming but it absolutely does.
- jdietrich 8y agoIt didn't do multiroom at the time of writing.
- kingosticks 8y agoWhat makes that more open?
- squarefoot 8y agoNothing, sorry. I was lurking around and got the wrong impression by reading other articles. The Audiocast does indeed offer more than Chromecast Audio, but doesn't seem open at all.