The Chromecast was one of the few things I really liked made by Google. I always have one in my travel bag and it’s basically like bringing your own home theater to the hotel with you. I had a time where I lived in hotels and AirBnB’s for almost a year and this thing was god send.
They have some other device which they want to sell which will replace it, but that one is big and clunky, not meant for traveling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSSI_Ht6Mis
Connecting a classic (non-Google TV) Chromecast to a new WiFi (or heaven forbid a hotel WiFi with a capture portal) was always such a pain. And casting over networks without mDNS is flaky at best and otherwise downright impossible.
By contrast, I’ve loved taking along my Chromecast with Google TV to hotels, along with:
- A VPN client installed it already,
- An Android phone that can create a WiFi AP while connected to the hotel WiFi,
- A Bluetooth speaker and my Bluetooth headphones paired to it so I get great audio as well.
This has been a complete gamechanger and a genuine upgrade over yesteryear’s Chromecasts.
I take my raspberry pi 400 and a mouse with me ($70). I don’t like to travel with expensive things. Once connected to a hotel tv, i have a full pc. I watch movies in 720p to have more fps. In case I have something important to do but no TV, I vnc to my phone.
