I’m celebrating all the things I liked in 2013 with a series of posts I’m cleverly calling 2013 in Review. Click that link to see all the entries.
I’m a bit of a gadget hound, and I’ve bought a bunch of them over the course of 2013. Some I love and use everyday, others not so much.
The odd duck of the group is the gadget that I love yet have no real use case for: Google’s Chromecast.
The Chromecast is a $35 doohickey which you plug into an HDMI port on your HDTV. It connects to your WiFi network and then you can stream a variety of things from your computer/smartphone/tablet with a couple taps.
Setup is simple, it works like a charm, and I would recommend it for anyone looking for a simple way to stream Youtube videos of Maru or Netflix to their TV (especially if that person is an Android user).
If I love the Chromecast so much why don’t I marry it? Or at least, why am I not using it regularly? Well, I’m already married and my TiVo has replaced the Chromecast. The TiVo trumps the Chromecast for me because it does live TV, records stuff, streams Netflix, and allows me to throw a YouTube video on my TV all without having to change sources (it is also much, much more expensive than the Chromecast so there’s that).
One response to “Best Gadget I don’t use: Chromecast”
I was really close to ordering one a while back. I then realized that I almost never used my laptop so I moved that into the living room, plugged it in to the TV with HDMI and use a wireless mouse.
I also have a $70 android HDMI stick I used for a while, but it doesn’t do Flash, so I barely use it for anything.
PS – Happy New Year Scott!