8 ms·
Maybe I'm missing the forest for the trees but... what possible reason would you have for taking a Chromecast to a coffee shop?
by eertami 8y ago
Maybe I'm missing the forest for the trees but... what possible reason would you have for taking a Chromecast to a coffee shop?
- unethical_ban 8y agoIt was a stretch. I've taken Roku to a local bar to stream live events. The generic "take my device to a network I do not manage" isn't outrageous though.
- scarface74 8y agoWhich is all well and good until you need to authenticate with a captive WiFi network.... For that I use this https://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-WR810N-Wireless-Adapter-Repeater/dp/B01CVOLGOG https://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-WR810N-Wireless-Adapter-Re... It lets me connect to one WiFi network and bridge and create a second private network. You can then connect and authenticate from another device and the Roku worked.
- reaperducer 8y agoPeople bring all kinds of crazy things to coffee shops. I saw someone set up a full-on painting kit, with a big palette, tubes of paint, and a full-sized easel. I believe at one time TPUG members (https://www.tpug.ca https://www.tpug.ca) would bring their PETs to Starbucks for meetings. I know I've banged out work on a TRS-80 Model 100 at Coffee Bean.
- solarkraft 8y agoWhat about a presentation? What if it's not a coffee shop, but a conference?
- jil 8y agoCampuses also have this kind of security. I can't use a Chromecast or a Google Home on my college campus because my school's IT team blocks all DNS servers except their own.
- barrkel 8y agoNot a coffee shop, but certainly a hotel room, to cast some entertainment on the TV rather than rely on a laptop.
- farisjarrah 8y agoThe hotel thing can be a pain if there is some sort of per device login portal.
- michel-slm 8y agoRoku and Amazon Fire TV works fine with captive portals though (Roku elegantly asks you to connect to a custom WiFi AP that just forwards the captive portal to your phone). So this is another case of Google making assumptions that limit their devices' usability.
- pixl97 8y agoThe problem here is you are falling in the same trap as the Google engineers here. Why would ______ want to do _______ with their ______ device? You can make a locked down device that only does a very limited subset of functions, but you really should make that known to the user before hand. "This device requires access to $X servers to function". If you have secret requirements that go far beyond user expectations, expect that your users might get pissy about it.
- hannasanarion 8y agoThe fact that we got six years into the chromecast world before anybody complained is a pretty good indicator that, no, in fact, most people who want to watch youtube on their TVs don't configure their firewalls to block 8.8.8.8.
- scbrg 8y agoPerhaps the hordes of previous complainers, unlike Paul Vixie, complained to the black hole that is Google support, so we never heard of it :)
- Sendotsh 8y agoIt has actually been a common issue for many years, including for myself, but the rest of us don't have the social clout for it to make it to HN front page. These days you have no chance of getting any form of tech support or even issue acknowledgement unless you have a large follower count online.
- acct1771 8y agoMmmm...I love manufactured consent in the morning.
- scarface74 8y agoIf you want a general purpose computer to serve as your set top box, buy a general purpose computer.
- kllrnohj 8y agoGoogle isn't exactly secret about the fact that Chromecast connects to Google's data centers. Especially if you're using it to, say, watch YouTube, as Paul Vixie was. Chromecast connecting to Google is not a "secret requirements that go far beyond user expectations." Expecting a cloud-connected product to continue to work when you've randomly blacklisted IPs that belong to that company is, however, an unreasonable expectation.
- arrty88 8y agoI’ve thrown parties at many public venues, schools, bars, restaurants and want to put up a slide show. Etc. so many use cases.