How to Use Chromecast for Video and Audio
If you want to cast a movie or TV show on the big screen or stream music to your speaker wirelessly, then the Chromecast standard is one of the best ways to do it: it couldn’t be much easier to use, works on a variety of devices and apps, and you can even You can use it to mirror browser tabs and Android screens.
Here’s everything you need to know about Google’s Chromecast technology and the Google Cast protocol that powers it, from the steps needed to set it up to the TV models that support it natively and everything in between .
What is Chromecast?
Technically speaking, a Chromecast is a physical piece of hardware that you can stream video and audio to wirelessly—like Chromecast with Google TV . However, the term is also often used to refer to the wireless streaming process itself, in part because many devices now have built-in Chromecast capabilities without the need for a dongle (such as smart TVs from Sony and Google Nest Hubs). .
At the heart of Chromecast devices is Google Cast technology, a protocol or set of standards developed by Google that tells devices how to interact with each other and with the Internet. If the device you’re sending content from supports Google Cast, and the device you’re sending content to supports Google Cast, you have a working Chromecast setup.
Both the sending and receiving device must be on the same Wi-Fi network, and once you press the cast button, this is what happens: the sending device (like your phone) talks to the receiving device (like your TV), and tells it, where on the Internet you can find the video you are watching or the audio you are listening to. This file is then transferred to the receiving device from the Internet, although you can still control playback from the original device you started on.
So, if you use a phone and a Chromecast-enabled TV together to watch a movie, the movie isn’t cast from the phone to the TV—the phone just tells the TV which specific movie stream it needs to connect to. and where did you come up with this. This means your phone doesn’t have to do the heavy lifting of processing or transmission, and it also reduces congestion on your network.
Chromecast-enabled devices
As for Android phones and tablets, you can mirror whatever’s on the display to any Chromecast device, as well as cast content from certain apps. Almost every media app, from Pocket Casts to Prime Video to Tidal, will have a cast button somewhere in the interface that you can use.
iPhone and iPad don’t have Chromecast support for screen mirroring like Android, but you’ll find a cast button on most media apps like Netflix and Spotify. The only exceptions are Apple’s own apps like Apple TV and Apple Music (though you can stream them from Apple Music on Android).
Chromecast functionality is also built directly into Google Chrome, meaning you can get a Lifehacker website, Google Slides presentation, or anything else open in a browser tab on the big screen, although in this case the sending and receiving devices communicate directly , so they are not fast enough to process video and audio streams. It works on any platform that can run Chrome.
Many web apps can be cast to Chromecast devices in the usual way—by sharing a specific link to the content for a seamless switch—as long as you open them in Chrome. Services like YouTube, Disney Plus, Plex, Spotify, and many others will display a Chromecast button somewhere in the interface if they’re running on the Chrome browser.
When it comes to devices that can receive Chromecast links, then obviously you have Chromecast dongles to start with. What’s more, any TV running Android TV or Google TV will work like a Chromecast, no additional hardware required: TVs from the likes of Sony, Philips, Sharp and Vizio are included, and Google has more information on compatible TVs here .
Chromecast works with Google’s Nest line of smart speakers, and if you have a Nest smart display, you can stream video and Chrome browser tabs, as well as audio. If you really want to, you can edit a Google Doc on your Nest Home Hub—it’s not practical, but it shows how versatile the Chromecast standard can be.
How to use Chromecast
If you’re starting with the phone or tablet you want to send content from, look for the cast button in the app—it looks like a rectangle with three concentric arcs in the bottom left corner (though Spotify goes its own way with an icon that looks like a speaker in front of the screen). It’s usually somewhere on the “now playing” screen. You’ll also see the same button in many web apps for video and audio if they’re open in Chrome.
If you’re casting from the Chrome web browser, it’s always best to use the cast button on the website itself, if one is displayed. If not, click the three dots (top right), then select Save & Share and then Transfer to send everything in the current tab to your Chromecast device. You can continue to use Chrome as usual, but the tab will be reflected on a different screen.
To mirror your Android Pixel device’s screen, open Settings and select Connected Devices , Connection Settings , and Cast . On any other Android device, you can use the Google Home app to perform the same task: tap the appropriate Chromecast device under the Devices tab, then select Cast My Screen .
Once you launch Google Cast, a list of Chromecast-compatible devices on the same Wi-Fi network will appear: just tap the one you want to use. After a few moments the connection is established. You can continue to use the original device, be it a phone app or a browser tab, to control what’s happening on another screen (for example, your phone can become a remote control for your TV).