Back in January, Google took to its own Blogger to announce this weird, awkward-sounding thing called “Google Cast for Audio,” a technology which was supposed to “embed the same technology behind Chromecast into speakers, sound bars, and A/V receivers” that were supposedly going to be manufactured and sold “this spring from lead brands Sony, LG, and HEOS by Denon with more brands coming later in 2015 with the support of chip makers Broadcom, Marvell, MediaTek and system integrator Libre Wireless.”
But… ya know something? Cool as it sounded at the time, I’m pretty sure the coolest thing that actually came out of that announcement was our witty and artfully-written news piece covering it. Cuz… I’m not SURE-sure, but I’m “pretty sure” that that idea never really came together. Awkward?
Okay, but now that I reminded you of all of that: never mind any of that! Because Google is doing the audio-streaming thing FOR REALZIES this time. And by “FOR REALZIES,” I mean: without that stupid smart-speaker idea.
The new thing is called Chromecast Audio, and it’s for sale right now for $35 USD.
So what’s the deal this time? Welp, it basically works like the Chromecast TV stick does (which was also recently revamped, by the way): by “using the speakers you already have to play the music from the device you choose.” In other words, once you get the this little thing in your possession, you just plug the 3.5mm jack into whatever speakers you already have lying around, sync it to your smartphone or dumb tablet or whatever with a downloadable app, and BOOM. You’re ready to start streaming all of the awesome music TMT keeps recommending to you on a regular basis. That’s it. No special speakers, no special remotes, none of that “Bluetooth” garbage that you see your parents awkwardly fiddling around with, no nothing. Specifically, Google says that it works out of the box “with iPhone®, iPad®, and Android devices, plus Chromebook, Mac®, and Windows® laptops” and streams your favorite music-streaming apps “straight from the cloud” so as not to drain your battery life and so that “your music sounds the way it was meant to be heard.” Which, I guess in 2015 means streaming as MP3s from the cloud over WiFi to some tiny speakers off in the corner of your more-intelligent-than-you-are apartment. Oh, brave new world!
• Chromecast Audio: https://store.google.com/product/chromecast_audio
