Of course they are.
Add another casualty to the list:
They aren’t really, they are just upgrading it to a full set top box and rebranding it.
But it went from a dongle to a set top box for more than 3 times the price. It’s not really the same device, just similar functionality.
In place of the Chromecast, the company will offer the newly announced $99.99 Google TV Streamer,
They’re replacing it with a very similar product. Nothing to see here.
A more expensive, clunkier product, with a bunch of needless fluff in it.
Now with AI!
I’m not sure why they didn’t just call it the chrome cast gen whatever though.
So you could just ask it for anything and it could make it up?
“Google, show ‘Ow! My Balls!’”
You mean twice the ram (1 gig more than the shield), 4 times the storage (32 gigs), and a better remote (chirping find my remote feature, programmable button, and less shitty volume buttons)?
Yep. Sure sounds worse considering it also supports all the same features of the chromecast 4k and AV1 decoding.
I don’t need any of that. I just need a cheap dongle that can run one app
Most of the appeal of the Chromecast is that it’s a dongle you plug in once and never have to see again. It doesn’t need high performance and 32 gigs of RAM. It needs to play video. That’s its entire purpose. It’s controlled by any phone on your wifi, it doesn’t need a remote.
For most users, this is an expensive downgrade.
They’re supposedly using pretty much the same chipset. So the most important part is still underpowered, these Android boxes generally work fine even with 2-3GBs of RAM.
The low-power streaming box is dying. It’s not completely without reason, 4k playback is actually a bit demanding.
We are in a place where the 2017 nVidia Shield is beginning to show its age and that leaves the AppleTV as the only powerful and capable consumer set top box on the market. This new option from Google will at least provide some competition and an option outside of Apple’s ecosystem.
I cannot believe NVIDIA has essentially abandoned its SHIELD micro console line. My Shield Pro has been an amazing sideloading fiend.
This $100 box from Google runs on the same SoC as the $50 streaming box from Onn (Walmart). The only major differences are the Google box as 4GB of RAM vs 3GB, a 1Gb Ethernet port instead of 100Mb (both have WiFi 6), and the Google box has a USB Type C port for power/data and would need an OTG adapter/hub while the Onn box has a Type A and a barrel plug for power.
They’re replacing it with a very similar product. Nothing to see here.
Like they do with messengers every couple of years.
I feel the original Chromecast was probably the last truly great original Google product, it was simple, it was inexpensive and it worked - you just plugged it in, joined your network and you were off, there really wasn’t anything like it at the time.
I really hate what they’ve become.
What’s funny is that was actually the start of them becoming who they are now. There’s a litany of evidence they stole the Chromecast technology
The remote playback control over network patents? I can’t see why those patents should be valid, everything there has prior art done in the 80’s
What I’m more pissed about is how Google killed Miracast (it’s technically still around but Google removed it from default Android and OEMs have to choose to enable it) and how they fought against 3rd party implementations to keep the Chromecast protocol closed.
I see there’s ongoing work for a Matter based standard for casting, I really hope that ends up getting broad support. We need something better than DLNA (and Miracast is technically DLNA over WiFi Direct). We need an open casting standard supporting Chromecast-like remote interactive content (the device is essentially a remote controlled web browser)
Chromecast with Google TV made the “simple” casting worse for some apps like Netflix. Instead of it casting directly, it would spawn the Netflix app and make you use the remote to reselect the show you wanted to see.
Also they made it reliant on the Google Home app, which makes it really hard to change WiFi networks. It’s a pain in the ass if you have multiple WiFi networks setup at your house.
Yeah I got one of the newer ones after having a ton of the earlier models and I was disgusted by that change. Instantly returned it and bought one of the discontinued Ultras for 4K.
I feels like they either badly copy (see Gemini) or don’t think about what they’re offering (see Stadia’s busted business model) they’re content to milk the existing services they’ve already got and make them worse by cramming in more ads (see YouTube, Google’s search result pages) and they cut out or dictate the web through their monopolies (see AMP and Chrome) rather than working with other parties to make good products.
They feel like Hooli in Silicon Valley, basically the definition of a fat tech giant who doesn’t do any innovation of their own.
Badly copy (see Gemini)
Tf are you smoking dude, Google has been working on AI long before ChatGPT was a twinkle in Sam Altman’s eye. They didn’t release any public models because they wanted to go about it safely and not just dump the world’s best misinformation creator on the open market for anyone to use with little safeguards. All that went out the window when ChatGPT got all the press and google decided they wanted a piece of the hype, but pretending they “didn’t do any innovation of their own” in regards to AI is ludicrous. They have been at the forefront of AI development for the last decade, and the fact you think otherwise shows your only knowledge about AI is from after ChatGPT headlines started coming out.
“Yes I know the customer learned that product name and has a good connotation with it, but how about we change the name to something completely different?”
“Our current product offering is less than $50. We were thinking the next iteration should be $300”
It’s also built with the same SoC as Walmart’s Google TV box that sells for $50.
Really, rebranding from Chromecast to Google TV Streamer? Who the fuck was the genius that greenlighted this?
Hi, I’m the project lead on Chromecast and I’m here to talk about what my team’s been up to maintaining this popular product
The board: yawn
Hi, I’m the project lead on the new Google TV Streamer that we’ve just launched, let’s look at these exciting new adoption numbers and talk about how we plan to keep this incredible momentum going
The board: Wow! Amazing stuff plz take this large bonus
I knew someone who worked at a really well loved local restaurant. One day a new manager came in and IMMEDIATELY wanted to change the name. According to him, you should change a restaurant’s name every 2 years
Why would you ruin the recognition you already have? He was also planning on changing the name to be the exact same as a business down the street. I think he was an idiot
Because the dude comes from a corporate world where everybody’s known for stagnation, not quality, so changing the name gets rid of an association with stagnation BUT also gets rid of an association with quality if that’s the reputation you’ve built up and these types can not understand that because they’ve never worked in a place putting quality first
