On this episode of 6 Months Later, we'll be taking a look at the Google
Chromecast Audio device, what makes it unique for a whole home audio solution,
and how it stacks up against the competition in the ever-changing
landscape of home audio devices. This is 6 Months Later.
While connected whole home audio has been around for a while now, as fans of
the Sonos brand can attest to, it's still a relatively new concept for a lot
of people out there. What whole home audio simply is, is instead of listening to
your music on your kitchen speaker, or listening to music on your stereo system,
you have speakers placed throughout your entire home that can play the same piece
of music or the same media. Now back in the early days of whole home audio, these
systems were incredibly expensive because they were relying on wires. It
wasn't until the dawn of the Wi-Fi age where you had better and cheaper
alternatives to the wired home audio systems out there. As fans of the Sonos
brand know, being able to play your music everywhere in your home is a luxury
worth paying for. Howeve,r it is still a luxury. Sonos speakers are still
relatively expensive, costing anywhere from one hundred to several hundred US
dollars per speaker. There was still a huge part of the whole home audio market
waiting to be filled in and then Google came and filled it in with the Google
Chromecast Audio. Released a little over two years ago, the Google Chromecast
Audio is a Wi-Fi connected device that allows you to turn any self-powered
speaker with an aux input, into a Wi-Fi connected speaker that you can cast
music and media to from a variety of apps like the Google Home app, the Google
Play Music app, or just any app that supports Google Chromecast. You can also
cast from a Google Home device which, we've done plenty of videos of on this
channel and have a ton of information about all of these Google Home devices.
So if you would like to learn more about those, I'll make sure to just link videos
in the description or just click the card in this video to learn more.
Priced at $35, the Google chromecast Audio is a very affordable way to do
connected Wi-Fi home audio, especially if you already have speakers in your home
like a 5.1 surround sound system, kitchen speaker, or computer speakers that you'd
like to turn into Wi-Fi connected speakers. The
Chromecast Audio comes with a 3.5 millimeter jack and a cord to plug into
your speaker as well as a power cord. It's a relatively small device and looks
kind of like a shrunken hockey puck. You can cast media from a variety of
different apps that support Chromecast Audio, there's not really one app you use
to cast media to the Chromecast Audio like you would with Sonos. There's
typically one app and you just cast, media to your Sonos speaker. For example,
with the Chromecast Audio if you want to just listen to your Spotify on your
Chromecast Audio device, all you have to do is go into the Spotify app, or on the
Spotify website on a computer, just click the cast button and boom, it's that
simple. You're now casting music to your Google
Chromecast Audio device. Now like Sonos historically, the Google chromecast
Audio has always had one slight issue and that is in order to use it, you
really needed one of these things. You either needed a phone or another
computer device to cast a media to your Google Chromecast Audio. That's so 2014!
In this day and age, it makes much more sense to,I don't know...use your voice. And
that's why so many companies like Google, with their Google Home devices, are
getting into the smart speaker space. Everybody is getting into this space,
Apple, Amazon, Bose, Google, even Sonos are all getting into the smart speaker
device market and the reason for that is is it is much easier to play music
around your entire home using a speaker that is always on, always listening for
its trigger word, and just ready to play whatever music you want to a group of
speakers or a single speaker in your home. It's just a much more convenient
solution than casting media from your phone to your speaker. Now after six
months of using my Google Chromecast Audio devices, I can't say that I haven't run
into any significant problems with them. I've only ever had to reboot these
devices like twice, and it's really easy to do that from within the Google Home
app on a mobile device. Now one of the things I love most
about my Google Chromecast Audio devices, aside from the fact they are capable of
playing lossless high resolution audio, is the fact that I can group Google
Chromecast Audio devices together into speaker groups and I can also include my
Google Home speakers within these speaker groups as well. I use the speaker
group feature all the time, especially in my bedroom when I want to rock out to
music while working from home. I've got the Google chromecast Audio hooked up to
my Bose computer speakers and then I've grouped these speakers in with the
Google Home and Google Home Max that are also in my bedroom.
Now when playing music on a speaker group, you can actually go into your
Google Home app, click the volume button of the speaker group that is currently
playing the media and then the Google Home app will actually allow you to
adjust the mix of your speaker group. Now I do want to address one piece of
criticism that has come up about the Chromecast Audio recently and that is,
why does this thing exist when the Google Home Mini is now a thing. Like why
couldn't Google have just combined the Chromecast Audio with the Google Home
Mini so I could use the Google Home Mini and plug it into speakers I already have.
And I totally get where this criticism is coming from. And my guess right now is
that Google, at least for now, sees these two devices for two completely separate
use cases. The Google Home Mini is really designed to be in places in your home
that are accessible. It does have a touch interface which invites you to come up
and interact with it. The Google Chromecast
Audio on the other hand, is not designed to be in places that are necessarily
accessible. It does not have a touch interface, it's way smaller than the
Google Home Mini, you can leave it dangling off a table when it's plugged
into speakers and you simply just wouldn't be able to do that with a
Google Home Mini. With the Chromecast Audio and Google Home devices, Google is really
setting itself up to be a really powerful player in the home audio device
market. Right now, Google is one of the only companies that is able
to deliver an affordable solution for buying smart speakers with smart
assistance built into them, with their Google Home product line, adding Wi-Fi
connectivity to existing speakers with their Google Chromecast Audio devices,
and then grouping all of these speakers together into speaker groups and
allowing you to easily cast a media to them through a variety of apps services
and with the Google assistant. This gives Google a real advantage in this space
and should make you feel comfortable if you want to go all-in with Google and
their devices as your platform of choice for your audio devices. I know that's
what I've done in my personal life and I could not be happier with my choice.
Thanks so much for watching this review. If you'd like to see more 6 Months
Later reviews of products, be sure to like this video and subscribe to the
channel. For 6 Months Later, I'm Josh Teder.