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So they are ending Chromecast, and also just launched the "Google TV Streamer" which seems to do the same thing, but "faster, more premium" whatever that means.

• paxys 2y ago
  More than twice. Chromecast is $30. The new TV streamer is $100.
• gclawes 2y ago
  "faster, more premium" == can't fit in a dongle form-factor anymore I guess
• PhasmaFelis 2y ago
  "Premium" in general means "more expensive," right?
  • jsheard 2y ago
    It's $100, compared to $50 for the last 4K Chromecast dongle or $30 for the 1080p version.
    • kobalsky 2y ago
      For reference, an Apple TV 4K costs $129.
      • jsheard 2y ago
        That premium gets you a pretty beefy processor at least, the same one found on the iPhone 13. I doubt the SoC Google is using will be even close to that.
        • lxgr 2y ago
          Supposedly Google's new thing uses a Mediatek MT8696 from 2021. If https://fr.gadgetversus.com/processeur/mediatek-mt8696-vs-mediatek-mt8696d/ https://fr.gadgetversus.com/processeur/mediatek-mt8696-vs-me... is to believed, that would be 20 GFLOPs – Apple's does over 1000...
      • lxgr 2y ago
        And that can run games on par with last-gen consoles (below PS4, but significantly above Switch level in terms of raw GFLOPs)! At their original price point, Chromecasts were pretty great, but why on earth would I pay the same as an Apple TV for something containing an SoC from 2021? I wasn't able to find reliable numbers, but performance seems to be lower by 1-2 orders of magnitude.
        • stavros 2y ago
          Does the Apple TV work well without an iPhone? I worry it'll be missing half the features. With the Chromecast I can use my phone as a remote, whether that's iOS or Android, for example.
          • llm_nerd 2y ago
            The Apple TV comes with a great remote, and an iPhone not only isn't necessary, the backup "if you lost your remote" interface on the iPhone is kind of bad. Though if you lose your remote in the cushions or whatever note that your iPhone can be used as a "hotter hotter colder colder" method to find the remote. Was surprised to find this feature. https://support.apple.com/en-ca/108371 https://support.apple.com/en-ca/108371
            • stavros 2y ago
              Oh yes, Apple has been adding UWB location to all their devices, it's great. Thanks for the info, I'll get an Apple TV next!
          • mikestew 2y ago
            The only feature I can think of that you would miss is using the phone to type passwords on the Apple TV (instead of using the keyboard-less remote). Set that up once, and you should otherwise not know the difference. Otherwise, my iPhone needs no interaction with the ATV.
        • Mistletoe 2y ago
          Especially when everyone’s tv now does all this pretty much? I cannot imagine successfully getting my gf to switch to this from the Roku integrated in her tv.
  • slowmotiony 2y ago
    It's precisely $50 premiumer than chromecast.
• SparkyMcUnicorn 2y ago
  I think this can actually compete with, and might be better than, the nvidia shield pro. Since 2019, I don't think we've had such a device (last I checked). The "best devices" lineup has been the nvidia shield pro, Roku ultra, and Apple tv 4k, with Roku being the cheapest at $99. If you don't care about decoding support for all the different video formats, HDR10, dolby xy and z, etc., then these sorts of devices might not be for you.
  • entropicdrifter 2y ago
    The oen thing no device currently has that the shield does that I'd need to see to replace mine is support for HD audio codecs. I play blu-ray rips on my shield through my Jellyfin server and it supports bitstreaming DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD without any decoding on the streaming device. The Shield is literally the only streaming device on the market that I'm aware of that does this. Without it, I wouldn't get the Atmos/DTS:X information passed on to my receiver when watching blu-ray rips.
    • SparkyMcUnicorn 2y ago
      I'm in a similar boat. For audio it says it supports "Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Atmos", so I guess we can only assume that means DTS-X is missing. But supporting HDR10+ a nice win over the shield, and it also does support the necessities like HLG, H.265, H.264, VP9, and AV1.
      • entropicdrifter 2y ago
        Dolby Atmos support without Dolby TrueHD means TrueHD tracks with Atmos will play without it. If those are the codecs it supports that means it'll only stream Atmos when it's Atmos encoded over Dolby Digital Plus, which to be fair is what e.g. Prime, Netflix, and Disney will stream to you anyhow, but it doesn't help with watching my rips.
• skiman10 2y ago
  Twice the price with a chip from 2021. https://www.androidauthority.com/google-tv-streamer-processor-3468418/ https://www.androidauthority.com/google-tv-streamer-processo...
  • Yeri 2y ago
    whereas the 2024 Google device only supports Wi-Fi 5. heh...
  • cubefox 2y ago
    > many reviewers praised the Amazon devices for having good performance, so the new Google TV Streamer likely won’t be a slouch when it comes to loading apps or scrolling through the homescreen.
    • skiman10 2y ago
      In 2021 they praised the device as having good performance at a price point that is ~$30-40 less than what Google is launching their device at. The second gen of that Fire stick is selling for $40 right now on sale with Wi-Fi 6E. I saw some benchmarks posted of this chip and some others (with a Pixel 6 thrown in arguing that using a bunch of older Tensor chips might have also been a good idea.) And also a Shield TV which is 5 years old at this point. Single core: Fire Stick - 140 Shield TV - 279 (99% faster, twice as fast). Tensor G1 (Pixel 6 Pro) - 1007 (619% faster, seven times faster) A15 (Apple TV) - 1684 (1103% faster, 12 times as fast). Multi-core: Fire Stick - 491 Shield TV - 971 (98% faster, twice as fast). Tensor G1 (Pixel 6 Pro) - 2541 (418% faster, five times faster) A15 (Apple TV) - 4489 (814% faster, nine times as fast).
• SoftTalker 2y ago
  Same thing + "AI" We're going to be seeing a lot of this in the next year or two.
  • com 2y ago
    Then the AI marketing term is going to be cursed like 3D TV is, yet the tech itself more useful.
  • realce 2y ago
    How long until a Coca-Cola ends up in the Star Trek episode you're streaming?
• nextos 2y ago
  Or their internal fights / incentives to release new things instead of maintaining them. The chat mess with Google Talk, Hangouts, Meet, Duo, etc. was quite sad to watch because Talk was a great product.
  • thriftwy 2y ago
    They've basically lost the market to Zoom due to their failure to have a single stable offering when COVID hit. I hope they're happy with the zoo they have.
    • rob74 2y ago
      Still wondering how Zoom managed to pull that off - granted, they have a single offering, but describing it as "stable" is a stretch. And the UI is such a mess, don't get me started...
      • tonypace 2y ago
        The audio was acceptable over a bad line. For the competition, it too often wasn't.
  • tracker1 2y ago
    When hangouts was a singular app for all chat/sms (and google voice even), etc was peak power user to me... loved it. Downhill since. The sale of Domains was also massive imo. No reason for half of this and their internal incentivization needs dramatic revision.
    • wetpaws 2y ago
      Hangouts was a shadow of the Google Talk
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
• bitcharmer 2y ago
  It's such a shame that so many bright minds waste their talents in what now is essentially an ad business.
• prmoustache 2y ago
  To be fair, isn't any new TV in the market being sold with chromecast support?
  • jtwaleson 2y ago
    My 2019 Philips android tv got incredibly slow after years of updates. I didn’t notice it because it was so incremental but after some years the chromecast functionality started failing consistently. I did a factory reset, disconnected from the internet and added a Google TV dongle. TV is super fast again. Point of the story: it’s very nice to be able to buy a $ 50-100 dongle every 5 years and keep your old tv.
    • donalhunt 2y ago
      This is exactly the approach I've taken. Current TV is 14 years old and survived numerous house moves. Still as good as new. Most usage is via a Chromecast Ultra. I have a Chromecast 4K with TV (i.e. newer device) but it was a backwards step from an experience perspective (covered by others elsewhere).
• ajross 2y ago
  For clarity: the discussion here is about the Chromecast hardware product, the little HDMI stick. Chromecast the protocol remains supported pervasively via Google and third party products (many/most TVs take it natively, for instance). It just didn't have a home, no one wants to buy something that's already pre-installed. Ours comes out once every few months on vacation, for example.
• JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > also just launched the "Google TV Streamer" If Apple were run like Google, the iPhone would have been cancelled half a dozen times only to be resurrected as Apple Phone++ and Pocket AI, repeatedly investing in and torching brand awareness while distracting resources from product development to internal promotion and marketing the newest brand at the top of the escalator.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• buH39Pq4Ss 2y ago
  This seems like an unnecessarily cynical take. As a Chromecast user, both the price increase and the name change make sense to me. The current generation Chromecast (Chromecast with Google TV (4K)) was fast and responsive when it launched, but software updates have made it almost unusually laggy over time. Obviously the best solution here would be “just make the software fast again”, but not all the relevant software is written by Google, and the third party apps need to be fast even if they are not well-optimized. The previous hardware wasn’t up to the task, and the dongle form factor makes thermals a challenge regardless of what chip you put in. A set top box format + more capable chip + the general trend in higher component costs = a higher BOM cost. I think Google has correctly judged that many consumers are willing to pay a higher cost for a more responsive device. The name change just makes sense, because the previous name was terrible. “Google Chromecast with Google TV (4K)” is… a mouthful. The “Google Chromecast” branding is also associated with the “casting” UX flow that was the only way to interact with the first 3 generations of Chromecast devices. The majority of interaction with the current generation devices is probably through the remote (including the voice search feature on the remote). “Google TV Streamer” conveys the use case much more clearly. I get as frustrated as anyone else when Google kills products I use, but this clearly isn’t a case of that. They’re just releasing a new generation with some changes that plausibly meet consumer demand a bit better than the old version.
  • cubefox 2y ago
    I wouldn't expect much performance difference here: > Although the specifications for the MT8696 haven’t been published by MediaTek anywhere online, Amazon [which also used it in the past] says that the MT8696(T) variant of the chipset in the 2nd Gen model features a quad-core CPU clocked at up to 2.0GHz. The core design is ARM’s Cortex-A55 > The 2020 Chromecast with Google TV (4K) utilized Amlogic’s S905X3 SoC with four ARM Cortex-A55 cores clocked at up to 1.9GHz Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41171393 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41171393 So both use 4 x Cortex-A55. The alleged "22% faster CPU performance" does sound strange, as the maximum clock speed is merely ~5% higher. Though it does have more RAM (4 GB instead of 2 GB). They could have used a more recent SoC instead of the Mediatek from 2021, which would have been more efficient, but also more expensive. Making it a box instead of a dongle could also be motivated by better audio recording ability (for AI assistants), perhaps.