If you've just cut the cord,
or if you're thinking about it,
then you've probably heard of the Chromecast.
This is one of the simplest, easiest
devices out there and it's one of the cheapest.
35 bucks for this little thing
gets you a pretty powerful device.
Today we're not doing a full review of this, though,
we're gonna be talking about the top ten free channels
that I've found for you to check out on the Chromecast.
If you do want a full review,
check out that link up above me there
and you can get a full review of the device itself,
but for now, let's dive into those channels.
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Now as we get started, let me just remind you
to subscribe to the channel because we do a lot of giveaways
here at reviews.org, in fact,
there's one going on right now,
so go check out the description.
There's a link there, to a giveaway,
which you can check out.
Now, let's start talking about these free
Chromecast channels that you can check out.
The first thing to note is that the Chromecast
is run off your phone.
Doesn't matter if it's an Android or an iPhone,
or whatever, it will work on just about anything.
But, when it comes to downloading Chromecast apps,
you don't download them to the Chromecast itself,
you download them to your phone
and then use them on the Chromecast.
It's a little bit of a different system,
so there's no remote control involved.
It's all run off of this.
So, if I want to download something,
I have to go to my, in this case,
Google Play Store and download the app,
which goes onto my phone.
And then when I open it up, I'm able to cast to the TV.
So I'm trying to get a little bit off the beaten path,
but probably some stuff you've heard of before.
For instance our first pick is Spotify.
You probably have Spotify,
if you don't, you really should.
I love it, it's awesome.
But you can actually cast to a Chromecast from your Spotify.
You just start any music you'd like
and then in that play screen, you're given an option
of devices that you would like to cast on.
In this case, I want to go to my Google Chromecast.
There it is, appears on the TV, kinda comes up there.
So this will be nice if you are
wanting to do whole room sound and you have
maybe a soundbar attached to your TV.
This allows you to do that.
In fact, I am controlling the volume on that
from my TV as well.
So, Spotify is a good one to put on there
as your first option.
Next up, another name you've definitely heard of,
but you may not have thought of
to download on your phone, PBS.
PBS allows you to browse through both your local PBS content
and national content as well.
You can login or not.
But once you pick something to watch,
I want to watch this featured video on Harold Prince,
and when I do that on this screen,
I have my option to cast that to my TV.
So I do that and it appears right there on the TV,
ready for me to view.
Play that video and there it is.
This is really nice, because frankly, it's PBS.
There's a ton of PBS content out there.
A lot of it is good.
It's good, educational content, family content.
Speaking of which, our third option here is PBS Kids.
This is vital if you've got young kids,
as far as I'm concerned.
It's got all your favorites,
the Daniel Tiger's and Curious George and all of that.
But, very similarly, you log in
and you can even watch live PBS,
and you just look for that little Chromecast symbol,
and when you cast it to your TV,
it'll switch programs, it'll switch apps automatically
and start playing that on your TV.
Next up is one that's a little bit different from those.
It's Twitch.
If you haven't heard of Twitch,
well you must not be a gamer.
If you are a gamer, and you're not on Twitch,
I'm sorry but you really ought to be.
So if you login to the Twitch app here,
you can get all the game streams that you love.
I wanna watch something about StarCraft,
so I'm gonna, again, look for that Chromecast symbol.
Cast it to the TV and then once it's casting to the TV,
I can choose which stream I want to check out.
So this one is GOStephano, if you're a StarCraft fan,
you know that this is gonna be some good stuff.
Next up is one that I've mentioned on other devices,
but it is here on the Chromecast as well.
Pluto TV is a free TV provider.
And when I say free, I do mean free.
It is commercial supported content,
but you come in here and you get a guide,
just like you're used to, probably with your cable TV.
But on this guide,
let's say I want to watch the credits for Clue.
Sure, why not?
But once again, I just look for the cast symbol,
right there, send it to my TV.
And voila, there's Pluto TV,
it's just routing that feed to my television.
We missed Clue, I'm sorry.
It's a great movie if you haven't seen it, go check it out.
But there's a lot of stuff on Pluto TV.
There's a reason I put this in my top ten apps
for all of these different devices.
Pluto TV is awesome.
If you're used to live TV and you wanna stick with that,
but you'd rather not pay for it,
they've got, I think like 100 channels now,
that you can go through.
Everything from sports to movies to TV.
It's going to be, not quite the channels you're used to,
but similar types of content.
So Pluto is one to definitely check out.
Number six is a very similar one.
This is Tubi TV.
Tubi TV is similar to Pluto
in that it is commercial supported, free content.
This isn't live TV.
This is more similar though to Netflix,
where you've got a lot of categories
that you can scroll through
and check out the different titles that they have to offer.
So whatever you want to watch, again,
you just play that, hit the Chromecast button,
and you can send that directly to your Chromecast.
So here it goes.
Whatever the movie is that you want to watch on there.
Once you do have the title playing,
one nice thing about these apps,
most of them will work this way,
is that now the title is playing on my TV,
but my phone is freed up to do whatever else I'd like.
If I want to browse the internet while I'm watching TV.
Or maybe, I'm not sure if I wanna watch Supersize Me.
I've got my fill of that back in 2004.
So I want to go back and browse through the other titles.
So I can check out some other titles
while I'm watching this.
It doesn't tie up your phone.
That is one nice thing about the Chromecast
that I was afraid of when I first got one.
Next up is Crunchyroll and Funimation,
these come in at number seven and eight.
These are very specifically tailored,
much like Twitch is tailored for gamers.
These are very specifically tailored toward anime fans.
So if you like anime, or if you want to try anime,
these two apps are going to be vital for you.
Crunchyroll and Funimation.
So once you go in there,
I'm going to, first thing, cast it to my TV,
so that now, as I'm scrolling through here,
choosing which programs to watch,
it'll send that directly to the TV.
Now, one thing to note about these
is that Crunchyroll and Funimation
both have premium versions.
That will be commercial free, it gives you some perks
that you wouldn't get with the free version.
But you can get a ton of free anime on both.
So that's Crunchyroll and then like I said,
you can also check out Funimation as well.
Number nine on my list is the TED app.
If you're familiar with TED talks,
or TEDx talks, this is where you'll find stuff like that.
So if I go into the TED app,
again, similar to anything like Netflix,
where you search by genre, search by category,
it's gonna give you different types
of talks that you can watch.
But whatever you do want to watch,
you just go into that video
and make sure that you hit the Chromecast icon first.
That sends it to the TV.
And then when I hit the play button,
it will send it over there.
And we can watch the new political story
that could change everything,
but probably won't, let's be honest about this here.
And lastly, number ten on my list.
This might be the one I'm most excited about.
And this is the NASA app.
NASA, if you're not familiar with it,
NASA has an app where you can check out photos
and you can check out stories,
but you can also watch videos, live videos,
on demand videos, anything you'd like.
So if I go in here to the TV and audio section,
they've got a live feed here
that I can send to my Chromecast and watch,
you know whatever it is that I'd like to watch,
from the NASA channel.
Now there are a few other apps that
I was excited about that you can look out for.
But a lot of apps, unfortunately,
do require a paid subscription
to activate Chromecast features.
Viki is one that I've talked about in the past
on other devices, that for some reason on the Chromecast,
does require a subscription.
So watch out for that.
The other thing that you'll need to watch out for is
that just because you can download it
on your Android phone, or whatever else,
doesn't mean that it is Chromecast-enabled.
So it can be a little bit confusing,
you may want to do a quick Google search
on what it is that you're excited to download
and use on your Chromecast,
just to make sure that it is enabled
before you try it.
Otherwise, you can download it and start playing something
and see if that Chromecast icon comes up.
But sometimes you may be disappointed.
All right, hopefully that was helpful for you.
If you do want a full review of the Chromecast,
check out the review that we've done previously.
Also give this video a like if it was helpful,
and subscribe.
Check out the description for the giveaways
that we do here on this channel.
Thanks for watching, everybody.
I'll see you next time.