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Moments in Chromecast's history

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Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#291

Post by crazygringo »

mbreese wrote: post #23

How much of this is an "end" to Chromecast and a rebranding of Chromecast to "Google TV Streamer"? It seems like the bare-bones experience of a Chromecast being tied to a phone (or browser) is getting replaced with an Apple TV like experience. If this is the case, it might be a (rare) example of a good branding shift from Google. I have had two Chromecasts (the original and an Ultra) and I feel like both were hampere…

Exactly -- it's not an end at all, just a rebranding.

And it's about time. "Chromecast" was always a terrible brand IMHO, because it had utterly nothing whatsoever to do with Chrome, except that there happened to be a "Cast..." menu item in Chrome. But you can cast from lots of apps that aren't Chrome. It would have made just as much sense to call it "Gmailcast" -- that is to say, no sense at all.

"Google TV Streamer" isn't particularly memorable, but it's perfectly logical and intuitive. And it doesn't introduce confusion with a browser. Google wants the brand to be Google directly, not some sub-brand. Makes sense to me.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#292

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

ecshafer wrote: post #28

They also announced Google Streamer, which is just Google Chromecast but more expensive I guess, and also with the Nest technology for smart home stuff, which they also killed iirc. I have to say, I don't really see this product strategy as being good, or working. Google's product is just a mess, they are nearing Microsoft levels of incoherence. When you compare Google with Apple, it's such a night and day experience…

Ah, yes, Microsoft - the second largest company in the world - with a brand itself worth more than all but a handful of companies - is incoherent.

And Google, too.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#293

Post by carlosjobim »

poetril wrote: post #27

Looks like I'll be moving towards Roku, most of my friends use it and I've been using a Chromecast because I was gifted on. But the experience w/ Roku seems to be superior to Chromecast nowadays anyways.

Roku does not work very well with airplay in my experience. Other than that, it's a good solution for the price.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#294

Post by asveikau »

mFixman wrote: post #178
lxgr wrote: post #24

Wow, even for Google, this seems like an exceptionally well-liked and popular brand name and device to kill. The replacement ("Google TV streamer") seems to be a quite different device – most importantly, one that will be very visible next to a TV, and not out of sight behind it like its predecessor. For anyone not particularly interested in having "AI" in their streaming stick (and this being Google, surely that wil…

My conspiracy theory is that renaming all products to generic names (Hangouts to Google Chat, G Suite to Google Workspace) are an attempt by Google to prevent regulators from splitting them out from the main company. It's only a matter of time until Pixel gets renamed to "Google Phone".

That's funny when you consider the rename to Alphabet.

Edit: to clarify, since somebody downvoted me, I'm just saying it's funny that they refactored all their properties into multiple legal entities and now several years later might want to do the opposite. You can't expect consistent behavior from these companies over time.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#295

Post by acdha »

ghaff wrote: post #98
lxgr wrote: post #24

Wow, even for Google, this seems like an exceptionally well-liked and popular brand name and device to kill. The replacement ("Google TV streamer") seems to be a quite different device – most importantly, one that will be very visible next to a TV, and not out of sight behind it like its predecessor. For anyone not particularly interested in having "AI" in their streaming stick (and this being Google, surely that wil…

I think you'd find that the vast majority of consumers have never heard of Chromecast.

They’ve sold a hundred million of them and embedded it into millions of TVs. It’s not as mainstream as Chrome or Android but it’s far from a niche product, especially for people who aren’t old enough to have grown accustomed to using dedicated boxes attached to their TVs to watch everything.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#296

Post by kotaKat »

It's a shame Google had to ruin the Chromecast with the Google TV platform. It's so bloated and obnoxious and just a shame that we have to keep getting "suggestions" crammed down our throat disguised as ads.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#297

Post by jccalhoun »

hsaliak wrote: post #105

The 30 dollar price point was the big deal. A 100 dollar price point opens up competition to a lot more devices. As a consumer, this is completely unexciting.

I think they have let Walmart's Onn tv box take over that segment. I have one and it works pretty well.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#298

Post by buH39Pq4Ss »

aestetix wrote: post #8

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. Seems to be a reason to charge people more for the same thing but slap the AI label all over it. But that's just first impressions. Edit: and apparently the TV Streamer thing is twice the price of the Chromecast.

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.

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#299

Post by freedomben »

kardianos wrote: post #168

This is not the same thing. My Chromecast dedicated device would put a default nice picture, then wait for a cast. Google TV and this new device displays advertisements, store, and more. I hate it. It's the last google thing in my house. When it dies, google will be gone from my house.

Google TV does roughly the same thing. It's called "Ambient Mode"[1]. The default timeout takes a while though so I changed my timeout value to be much lower. It does feel like they're kind of hiding ambient mode though, which makes me think it's days are numbered, but on my current Google TV it works great. I set the timeout value very low so it will enter that mode after being idle for 60 seconds.

There may be a way to do it through the settings, but I enabled dev mode and used (wireless) adb to configure the timeout:

    adb shell settings put system screen_off_timeout 60000
I have a ton of handy bash functions and aliases to essentially have a CLI remote using adb that I can share if anybody is interested. It's really a pretty neat device and a lot more "open" than most people think thanks to developer mode.

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/AndroidTV/comments/os2z6q/chromecas...

Re: Moments in Chromecast's history

#300

Post by timgilbert »

morkalork wrote: post #261
kardianos wrote: post #168

This is not the same thing. My Chromecast dedicated device would put a default nice picture, then wait for a cast. Google TV and this new device displays advertisements, store, and more. I hate it. It's the last google thing in my house. When it dies, google will be gone from my house.

Aww man, this sucks. I had mine connected to a google photos album. I loved that feature.

You can either have it display from a Google Photos photo album, and get the version of the interface which constantly displays ads to you, or you can switch the interface to "apps only" mode which will only show you one big ad on the home screen. In "apps only" mode, the thing won't display your photos, either as a screensaver or anything else. You still need to be logged into your Google account, of course; as far as I can tell, not displaying photos is just a way of punishing you for trying to reduce the ads you see.
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