Google Cast is a simple, affordable way to send (or ‘cast’) entertainment and apps from your phone, tablet or computer to your TV or speakers.
It works with Android phones and tablets, iPhones, iPads and computers and once it’s set up it’s as simple as pressing a button.
To use Google Cast you’ll need a Google Cast ready device. The cheapest option is undoubtedly a Chromecast, which is a £30 device slightly bigger than a USB stick. You just plug it into an HDMI port on your television and power it either from a USB port or a socket, download and set up the free app and you’re ready to start casting.
Other options include Google Cast for Android TV, which will bring the technology to televisions and set top boxes. It’s not available on anything yet, but in future such devices will likely have Google Cast built in.
Then there’s Google Cast for Audio which brings the technology to your speakers, so you can cast music and other audio from your phone, tablet or computer to your speakers.
Once you have a Chromecast or other Google Cast ready device it’s easy to use. From a phone or tablet simply make sure you’re connected to the same Wi-Fi network as your Google Cast device, open a Google Cast ready app, pick a video, press the cast button and pick where to cast it to. Then it will start playing on that screen.
Once it’s playing you can control it from your phone or tablet, pausing or stopping it, fast forwarding or rewinding and even changing the volume. But as it’s not actually playing on your phone or tablet it doesn’t drain the battery and you can do other things on your device without interrupting the video.
If you’re using an Android device you can even cast your entire screen to the TV, by selecting ‘Cast Screen’ from the Chromecast app.
You can also cast content from the Chrome browser on your computer. Just connect to Wi-Fi, launch Chrome and add the Google Cast extension (found at g.co/castextension). Then the cast button will appear at the top right corner of your browser, allowing you to cast, videos, images and other content from websites at the press of a button.
Numerous apps are already compatible with Google Cast and more are added all the time. Right now you can cast Netflix, BBC iPlayer, YouTube, BT Sport, Now TV, blinkbox, Google Play Movies, Google Play Music and dozens more. For a full up to date list just head to g.co/castapps.
