I’m in the process of degoogling and I’m stuck trying to find a reasonable alternative to Chromecast. It would be great if I could stream music/video from my phone to my TV from apps like RiMusic, Tidal, and NewPipe. Are there any good solutions? Even better if friends and family can use it with minimal additional setup.
If you’re up for using Jellyfin and have satellite devices, you can check out something I’m working on to achieve this: https://github.com/MattMckenzy/Homehook
The main branch was compatible with chromecast devices, but I’ve stopped maintaining it in favor of the v2 branch, where HomeHook communicates directly with satellite devices through HomeCast.
Let me know if you have any questions about it, always glad to help!
There are probably better alternatives, but I have a raspbery pi plugged into my tv and use KDE connect to remote control the mouse and keyboard from my phone. If I wanna watch youtube I’ll navigate to youtube.com and click on a video.
Plasma actually has a UI for smart TVs if you weren’t aware, although I have never used it myself so I’m not sure how good it is. https://plasma-bigscreen.org
I’ve heard that the focus is on the ARM versions (so maybe they are much more developed) but I tried the x86_64 version on my HTPC recently and it was super barebones.
In the end I found Gnome with a few extensions to be a better solution for my needs
Any suggestions about Gnome extensions?
I use Gnome on a 42" tv the only thing I’ve done is increasing zoom level since the couch is a bit far from the screen. In the browser I set up the new tab screen to have big icons that link to some of my bookmarks, using a browser extension. That’s all I’ve done compared to a vanilla setup. I have been using that for a few years with no issues but curious about how I could improve my experience!
Have been keeping an eye on https://fcast.org/ but haven’t gotten involved yet.
Yesss fcast looks incredibly promising. Sadly the only app implementing it seems to be GrayJay, I really hope it will catch on more.
I think a few more details are needed to get you a clear alternative:
- Which devices you want to cast from? what content you want to cast (DRM content like netflix, and/or your own media)? what kind of TV you have?
In my case after degoogling, I use mainly apple devices besides my windows pc. 2 of my TVs have AirPlay built in, so there’s no issue casting anything. If your TV is rather recent it’s likely to have it too.
The third TV is tricky, it’s an older 4k LG. I have a linux box connected to it and installed UxPlay in it. It only works with AirPlay “mirroring” so you kinda need an app that can treat the TV as a second monitor. Otherwise the mirroring won’t cover the entire TV screen. I’m still assuming apple devices here, but there’s OutPlayer and nPlayer in the appstore that can do this. It does support sound-only casting, so if it’s music you want it should be able to direct cast from your apps.
The second caveat for UxPlay is that it only works with DRM-free content (youtube, self hosted media). For DRM content I haven’t found a nice alternative for the old TV , so I use its built in apps (netflix, amazon prime). Kodi exists, but the plug-ins support for streaming sites isn’t good, often getting stuck to low-res content.
I’m guessing buying an apple tv/fire stick/roku is the only alternative for DRM content casting. I also explored the idea of “degoogling” my unused chromecast 3rd gen, but absolutely nothing exists for this and it just collects dust in a drawer.
I’ve got a handful of Android-based TVs that I’m becoming increasingly irritated with. Google regularly pushes updates that break stuff. I already have Jellyfin and Navidrome running on my network and can play them on the TV without issue. Netflix et al are also no issue, but being able to stream other sources such as YouTube/NewPipe.
I am not a fan of Apple either, so adding to them to the mix is a nonstarter.
The protocol is called DLNA
