Considering the Chromecast is plugged behind the TV, wouldn't it be really awkward to get to to tap on it?
Btw, Google has a series of APIs called Nearby (https://developers.google.com/nearby/) that are all about connecting to nearby devices but NFC doesn't seem the right answer here.
Chromecast isn't the right brand for what the author is suggesting. But what the author is suggesting is a really neat idea.
But it's no different from having a touchscreen with an NFC contact point. The Chromecast brand has nothing to do with it. Such a box could easily be a Chromebox - with NFC & Beacon support.
> The new version of the Chromecast is launched. I was already in love with the existing version and [its] JavaScript API.
I have a Chromecast and I Don't Get It. I'll be honest, I haven't tried searching for cool stuff to do with it. Sometimes I stream Netflix or Youtube from my phone. I found a way to stream MKV videos from my computer using Chrome. But that's it, nothing there is cool or revolutionary.
So, what's some cool stuff I can do with my Chromecast? I recognize there's something neat going on here, but it seems so locked down that I can't figure out what it is. Can I write arbitrary apps for it somehow? Is there a cool collection of apps that do... something?
The only thing I'd add to this is that it displays a webpage that can be controlled from the originating device (and possibly other devices, though I'm not sure if that's baked into the API or if you are on your own as far as getting other device involved). Using your phone or computer as a "remote" is one example of what you can do with these apis.
It also has sufficient hardware video decoding capabilities to play back 1080p video streamed over the network.
I really enjoy my Chromecast, I use it almost daily, and I agree with you, it doesn't do anything revolutionary. In my opinion what it does, it does a great job of. Before I purchased my Chromecast it was a nuisance to play media from my computer onto my TV, I had to mess around with long HDMI cable. If I wanted to play something from YouTube or Netflix I had to boot up my Xbox 360/PS3, wait for it to load, if there were updates I had to wait for those to download/install.
With Chromecast I can have the desire to watch something and have it playing on my TV within seconds. So it may not be revolutionary, but it certainly speeds things up.
I could never get my parents to use a ps3 or 360 or whatever to watch netflix, and them looking vod meant using a crappy service that let them download files into their own "media player". Since they have a chromecast, all they need to do is open whatever they want on their tablet and press a button.
As for myself, I use to it to stream my video games on TV using the "stream entire screen" option in google cast extension in chrome.
You can use your existing apps that you already have on your smartphone and have it "cast" to your TV. "Casting" is simplying saying... take this video link, and play it full screen on my TV. Or if you were using Spotify, "play my music through the TV, instead of through my phone". All the while, you're able to keep controlling the experience (pause/rewind/etc).
Won't speak for anyone else, but it's basically a small, affordable media extender. I can mirror my phone or a Chrome tab on my computer. I can use my phone as a remote to stream Netflix/HBO/etc or using the Plex app to control my Plex server and stream from my local network. A few other basic uses like mirroring output from my security cams or other media sources but that still falls under the "media extender" umbrella. There are a handful of games (think more like Monopoly than CoD) you can play with other people where your phones are the controllers and the TV is the main display.
I dunno, for $35 it's more just a sweet spot for what it does than something groundbreaking. I also have one of the audio-only versions and it's nice for turning any old shelf system or set of powered PC speakers into wireless speakers in your house. Once they add streaming to multiple Chromecast Audios at the same time, I'll probably get a few more to use as an affordable alternative to a Sonos setup.
Chromecast is a different approach to extending media. Most devices (Roku, FireTV, AppleTV) all requires proprietary apps to be installed on their devices. For example, Netflix developers would have to create a port of the application to be used on each media device. Obviously (or maybe not), you can't install apps on a Chromecast. The only thing it does is receive an instruction from a device on your wi-fi network. That instruction comes from a mobile app (such as Netflix) that implements the chromecast api, a way easier approach than porting the entire application.
It's amazing and simple. Chromecast is on to something...
Well yea. That's no different than that Amazon would have to develop an app for Roku or AppleTV.
Everything else remains constant, the only difference is supporting Chromecast is just implementing an API to your already existing application versus supporting another device is developing a whole new application for that device.
Third-party support is much easier to gain for Chromecast.
What's cool about it? The ability to send any kind of video to your TV with very little fuss. That has historically been a pretty tricky thing to do.
Is that revolutionary? I'd argue no. It's effectively a virtual HDMI cable between your phone and your TV - more convenient, but not revolutionary.
I've long since ditched my Chromecast for a Roku, which is far easier to use in a shared environment, and (IMO, of course) having a remote is infinitely preferable to having to use my phone. That said, Chromecast comes with a bunch of interesting JS APIs that could be used to make something interesting. I just haven't seen anyone do it yet.
> I've long since ditched my Chromecast for a Roku, which is far easier to use in a shared environment, and (IMO, of course) having a remote is infinitely preferable to having to use my phone.
I'm glad you said that because when the Chromecast first came out (and AirPlay was already popular) the narrative was that this was going to be the future way of consuming internet content. I never believed it because:
1. Phones get low on battery. Remotes rarely do. Having to navigate the TV was your phone is on a charger is a shitty experience.
2. Phones are personal devices; TVs are social. Everyone looking for a movie to watch on their individual phones is terrible compared to browsing options on a TV screen together.
I do still use my Chromecast in some scenarios; like you said when I find a random video online. But these are things I just happen to come across, not things I seek out like you do with my TV watching.
I use it to watch media from my laptop and phone. It basically allows me to do things I'd normally do with a HDMI cable without the hassle. Sometimes my roommates and I will sit around taking turns throwing up youtube videos. I like the other comment on this post, it does allow me to make my 'dumb' TV smart.
It's a network-attached browser engine on a TV. You can stream video, sure, but you can also load up an arbitrary webpage and render to the TV using standard web technologies. People have built multiplayer games played with multiple people's phones with the Chromecast as a shared area, such as card games. You could trivially show a persistent status page. Almost anything you can do with web technologies you can do on a Chromecast. (Notable exceptions: WebGL, and applying arbitrary transforms to live video.)
And in addition to client/server communication, you can easily send and receive messages between the page running on the Chromecast and the app or page that initiated that cast.
Most of the time, I use it for Netflix, YouTube, device mirroring (which also works for Amazon video streaming), or audio casting (for music). I've also built a few small HTML experiments using a device in developer mode.
I'm currently trying to build a general audio/video casting library for use in Open Source projects, without depending on the Cast SDK.
The point of this article is for a different usage of the Chromecast.
The Chromecast can display webapps (Chromecast apps) and this could transform any TV as interactive screen. Imagine you have a store, you can create an app which display the new products. But instead of having to type the URL on your phone to have more info, the web app could use the Chromecast API to broadcast a URL via NFC.
And for more advance stuff, it could implement something like Liwe. It's a service to use smartphones as remotes for web apps (>> liwe.co).
The problem right now is the Chromecast is only known for broadcasting video and audio while it can do more then that.
NFC is unnecessary for what the OP is talking about. The chromecast can advertise itself to mobile phones with inaudible audio or with a hidden QR code on the screen.
The sender and receiver SDKs have mature APIs for playing video. The session and media channels/objects are well documented and leveraging them on your custom receiver ensures far easier integration on the senders (iOS, android, and web). If you venture out of the cast-a-single-video experience, it can get pretty complicated as there are best practices for how to handle multiple senders, how to fetch a playlist and continue autonomously if the sender disconnects without stopping the cast, and maintaining a good user experience on all senders that represents current state of receiver. You could (and would be advised to) handle all this via the provided "media" channel.
More to the point of the article, there is also a custom messaging channel, you can create your own interactive experience (the receiver is just a website displayed in a chrome tab). Here's an example of tic-tac-toe: https://github.com/googlecast/Cast-TicTacToe-chrome.
You can already develop a custom receiver for an in-store search feature or something more interactive and playful.
You can connect to it via the same wifi.
I don't understand what additional value nfc provides in this case as you'd still need to maintain an open/persistent connection to the receiver from the sender, would nfc be able to provide that?
The problem is Chromecast requires the phone to have a Chromecast SDK using app on it anyway. Additionally you couldn't communicate without having a wifi connection, at least without proxying over the internet which is slow.
The closest thing to this would be to have the NFC auto open a webpage that is already paired to the app on the screen so that you can then use the custom web page's UI to send control messages to the TV via internet relaying.
What if the chromecast was allowed to transfer wifi network details (either for a secure or unsecure) network over NFC for the phone to temporarily connect to? That's a cool feature even if you don't plan to use the chromecast.
Actually, the SDK is pretty easy to use. I wanted to directly fetch the streams of a major movie site and without visiting their site at all. Implementing a session rejoin when the casted device switched (E.g. android, windows or linux) was done in about 5 Minutes, in overall it just took about 1 hour to completely write a webapp from scratch for a video site who's user experience otherwise would not allow me to endure searching for videos and requiring to jump through a bunch of hoops to cast an HR movie directly.
An experienced programmer should be able to do this even faster, since I am a sales guy. Don't let the bunch of documentation overflow you, most of it is trivia.
Hi maxwellito, we're working on something along these lines. Sent you a tumblr message but figured I'd post here as well. Just applied to YC. Would be nice to talk. Overall pretty underwhelmed by the "digital signage" industry and think we could push things forward using affordable commodity hardware.
Over the next few years, think this is a viable / utilitarian medium for delivering on some of the promises of ubiquitous augmented reality.
I already developed a product that does this without the need for NFC.
If there is anybody that can help with setting up an operational infrastructure for this project, then please email me. I'm the sole developer/owner and I mostly need help with building a team and accelerating the project forward.
46 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 97.3 ms ] threadBtw, Google has a series of APIs called Nearby (https://developers.google.com/nearby/) that are all about connecting to nearby devices but NFC doesn't seem the right answer here.
But it's no different from having a touchscreen with an NFC contact point. The Chromecast brand has nothing to do with it. Such a box could easily be a Chromebox - with NFC & Beacon support.
But yes, this would work with anything able to display a webpage (:Raspi..) :)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9575291
> The new version of the Chromecast is launched. I was already in love with the existing version and [its] JavaScript API.
I have a Chromecast and I Don't Get It. I'll be honest, I haven't tried searching for cool stuff to do with it. Sometimes I stream Netflix or Youtube from my phone. I found a way to stream MKV videos from my computer using Chrome. But that's it, nothing there is cool or revolutionary.
So, what's some cool stuff I can do with my Chromecast? I recognize there's something neat going on here, but it seems so locked down that I can't figure out what it is. Can I write arbitrary apps for it somehow? Is there a cool collection of apps that do... something?
Help me out. What's cool about Chromecast?
As the author states, the Chromecast basically just displays a webpage. There are a large number of APIs available. Get hacking!
It also has sufficient hardware video decoding capabilities to play back 1080p video streamed over the network.
With Chromecast I can have the desire to watch something and have it playing on my TV within seconds. So it may not be revolutionary, but it certainly speeds things up.
As for myself, I use to it to stream my video games on TV using the "stream entire screen" option in google cast extension in chrome.
Little setup, compatible with laptops, tables and phones. Just works.
I dunno, for $35 it's more just a sweet spot for what it does than something groundbreaking. I also have one of the audio-only versions and it's nice for turning any old shelf system or set of powered PC speakers into wireless speakers in your house. Once they add streaming to multiple Chromecast Audios at the same time, I'll probably get a few more to use as an affordable alternative to a Sonos setup.
It's amazing and simple. Chromecast is on to something...
Everything else remains constant, the only difference is supporting Chromecast is just implementing an API to your already existing application versus supporting another device is developing a whole new application for that device.
Third-party support is much easier to gain for Chromecast.
Is that revolutionary? I'd argue no. It's effectively a virtual HDMI cable between your phone and your TV - more convenient, but not revolutionary.
I've long since ditched my Chromecast for a Roku, which is far easier to use in a shared environment, and (IMO, of course) having a remote is infinitely preferable to having to use my phone. That said, Chromecast comes with a bunch of interesting JS APIs that could be used to make something interesting. I just haven't seen anyone do it yet.
I'm glad you said that because when the Chromecast first came out (and AirPlay was already popular) the narrative was that this was going to be the future way of consuming internet content. I never believed it because:
1. Phones get low on battery. Remotes rarely do. Having to navigate the TV was your phone is on a charger is a shitty experience.
2. Phones are personal devices; TVs are social. Everyone looking for a movie to watch on their individual phones is terrible compared to browsing options on a TV screen together.
I do still use my Chromecast in some scenarios; like you said when I find a random video online. But these are things I just happen to come across, not things I seek out like you do with my TV watching.
And in addition to client/server communication, you can easily send and receive messages between the page running on the Chromecast and the app or page that initiated that cast.
I'm currently trying to build a general audio/video casting library for use in Open Source projects, without depending on the Cast SDK.
The Chromecast can display webapps (Chromecast apps) and this could transform any TV as interactive screen. Imagine you have a store, you can create an app which display the new products. But instead of having to type the URL on your phone to have more info, the web app could use the Chromecast API to broadcast a URL via NFC.
And for more advance stuff, it could implement something like Liwe. It's a service to use smartphones as remotes for web apps (>> liwe.co).
The problem right now is the Chromecast is only known for broadcasting video and audio while it can do more then that.
https://google.github.io/physical-web/
It has a Marvell Avastar 88W8887 chip, which has NFC built in. http://www.marvell.com/wireless/88W8887/ as well as FM Radio.
I said this should be used for "Tap and Play"
More to the point of the article, there is also a custom messaging channel, you can create your own interactive experience (the receiver is just a website displayed in a chrome tab). Here's an example of tic-tac-toe: https://github.com/googlecast/Cast-TicTacToe-chrome. You can already develop a custom receiver for an in-store search feature or something more interactive and playful. You can connect to it via the same wifi. I don't understand what additional value nfc provides in this case as you'd still need to maintain an open/persistent connection to the receiver from the sender, would nfc be able to provide that?
The closest thing to this would be to have the NFC auto open a webpage that is already paired to the app on the screen so that you can then use the custom web page's UI to send control messages to the TV via internet relaying.
See early prototype: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE8-TntjYB4
An experienced programmer should be able to do this even faster, since I am a sales guy. Don't let the bunch of documentation overflow you, most of it is trivia.
Over the next few years, think this is a viable / utilitarian medium for delivering on some of the promises of ubiquitous augmented reality.
If there is anybody that can help with setting up an operational infrastructure for this project, then please email me. I'm the sole developer/owner and I mostly need help with building a team and accelerating the project forward.
segrafix @ gmail.com
Best, Ilya