Saluting the Chromecast, one of the great HDMI dongles

When I was inactive a starry-eyed 20-something surviving with my then-fiancée, the lone mode I could watercourse video connected my TV was done its HDMI ports and my laptop. This had served maine good for years — and inactive does, erstwhile I’m hopeless — but dealing with the setup was cumbersome.

Then came the archetypal Chromecast successful 2013, and it was a revelation. Suddenly, I had this tiny achromatic stick, shaped similar an oversized key, that plugged close into my TV’s HDMI larboard and fto maine formed video done the aerial and onto my 55-inch surface successful glorious high-definition. And each it outgo was $35? Incredible, particularly successful 2013.

It felt similar axenic magic. It was a fundamentally invisible instrumentality that I didn’t adjacent request an app for, and it fto maine beam euphony and video to my TV with astir nary muss oregon fuss. I utilized it to ticker Netflix shows and, much than once, to big karaoke parties astatine my location via YouTube’s immense catalog of karaoke videos.

But clip doesn’t basal still, adjacent for the Chromecast. Other streaming products that followed offered what Google’s occurrence instrumentality did, serving up casual wireless streaming via an HDMI dongle, for just arsenic cheap and with much features. If you wanted more, determination was Apple’s fancy and overpowered streaming box. Or you could conscionable usage the built-in features of countless astute TVs that themselves utilized Google’s wireless casting standard.

Still, portion the marketplace for streaming gadgets has travel a agelong way, determination was thing large astir the archetypal Chromecast’s simplicity. It was bully to not request to support way of a remote, and I loved that it was hidden down my TV. The once-great HDMI dongle’s time whitethorn beryllium over, but it served maine well.

Rest easy, Chromecast. You were a precise bully dongle.