RIP, Chromecast. You Will Be Missed (By Me)

Google has announced it’s killing off the Chromecast in favour of a more premium-priced “Google TV Streamer” set top box. Aww. I’m going to miss that little guy.

Ahead of when it’s certainly going to announce the new Google Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 (and if we’re lucky here in Australia, maybe the Pixel Fold 2, though I wouldn’t be holding my breath on that score), Google has announced a new streaming set top box — though, like the Pixel 9 phones, this one wasn’t exactly a secret.

Update: I was wrong about the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, as it turns out. More here:
Three things I love (and two I HATE) about the Pixel 9 Pro

The Google TV Streamer is a more traditional set top box than the Chromecast devices Google has sold in the past.

Predictably, it’s an upgrade in technology —- Google says its internal processor is 22% faster than on the 4K Google Chromecast With Google TV, it adds direct Ethernet support, it’s a Matter Hub and it has a revised remote control with an inbuilt beeping finder facility amongst other features — and all of that is… well, great, really. Technology progresses over time, and a new TV streaming set top box should be better than the ones that have come before.

Presuming Google does release the Google TV Streamer (who came up with that name?) here in Australia, I’ll be keen to review it and see how it compares against the rest of the field of TV streaming set top box options here in Australia.

Update: Google Australia has informed me that we will see the Google TV Streamer here in Australia “in the Spring”… which gives them a pretty wide timeframe for it to appear.

It’s not available in the US until late September, so we’ll have to wait and see. The original Chromecast took an age to land on Australian shores back in the day — I remember, I imported one to review it — but hopefully that won’t be the case for the Google TV Streamer.

Also read:

Which Smart TV set top box should I buy: Google Chromecast vs Amazon Fire TV vs Hubbl vs Apple TV vs NVIDIA Shield vs Fetch Mini

However, I can’t help but feel a little bit sad that Google is sending the Chromecast off to the Google Graveyard, for a couple of reasons.

Google’s contention here (as per this blog post) is that the streaming world has evolved massively since the first Chromecast was released back in 2013. That’s certainly true, but the position that Google is taking is that much of what the basic Chromecast does is now covered by Smart TV platforms.

Yes… and no. The issue here I feel is that while Smart TVs do ship with embedded apps, TV maker support for those apps is rarely that great in the longer term.

Most of us buy TVs with the idea that they’ll last a good long time, but it’s rare to see those same platforms offer new apps and updates beyond a few years.

My advice there has long been to buy the best screen you can get in quality terms and offload the smart TV part to a set top box or dongle instead, because those are cheaper and easier to replace than an entire TV if an app stops working or a new service comes along that your existing telly doesn’t support.

But the Google TV Streamer is more expensive than any Chromecast before it.

While local pricing hasn’t been confirmed here as I’m writing this (I’ll update when and if that changes), its $US99 list price will equate out to at least $150 as a direct conversion, quite probably more like $165-$180 AUD once you take GST and our smaller market into account. That’s not “TV expensive”, and it’s notably cheaper than options like the competing Apple TV set top box, but it’s undeniably a degree less affordable than a cheap Chromecast is.

It’s likely, by the way that we’ll see some serious discounting of the current Chromecast models, with Google noting that it’s ceasing production and once stock is gone, it’s 100% gone.

That leaves the low-end streaming market basically in Amazon’s hands via various Amazon Fire TV sticks and… that’s about it.

The Hubbl set top box is your next low-cost option, but as I noted in my Hubbl review, that’s a highly controlled platform with a very small selection of apps, where Chromecast is a lot more open.

The design of the new Google TV Streamer is kind of cute, and it 100% fits with the aesthetic that Google’s gone for with devices like the Pixel Tablet or Nest Hubs, but it’s also going to be considerably less portable than the Chromecast is.

The beauty of the Chromecast there was that it was a small dongle and a small remote control, plus maybe a power brick — though if you were lucky and the TV you were using gave out reliable USB power, you could bypass that sometimes.

That made the Chromecast a really good option for travelling; I’ve long had it on my “to pack” list when travelling interstate or overseas, because it meant that as long as my hotel Wi-Fi was good enough (or if I didn’t mind burning a bit of mobile data), I could access a much wider range of entertainment options. It’s not that the Google TV Streamer is the size of a TV — but it’s certainly markedly less portable for sure.

Update: To clarify (because, in all honesty, I forgot to write it) — if you’ve got a Chromecast it’s not going to die tomorrow; Google isn’t making any more and has made vague statements about future software support for the existing devices. That typically doesn’t go well for discontinued products, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see on that score.

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