With the announcement of Google TV Streamer, the Chromecast platform has been laid to rest after almost a dozen years.
To be fair, Chromecast has lasted longer than a good number of other products from Google. And it’s easy to understate just how important — if unassuming — a product it’s been. But now, after 11 years, Chromecast has earned a plot in the Google Graveyard.
Google itself announced the death of the nearly 4-year-old Chromecast with Google TV, and with it, the entire Chromecast line, as it announced Google TV Streamer. “After 11 years and over 100 million devices sold,” VP of engineering Majd Bakar wrote, “we’re ending production of Chromecast, which will now only be available while supplies last.”
So that’s that. The first-generation Chromecast changed the way we used our phones. It was a low-cost device that made it super simple to “cast” video from your phone to anything with an HDMI port. This was back in the days in which some companies were trying to make the DLNA protocol happen — but I only ever got to stream video from an LG phone to an LG television.
