Hi techy expats.

Any idea whether the Google Chromecast is worth the $40? It's sounds interesting and as my 22 year old said... "if you don't like it you can always take it back!" lol

Haven't tried it but it does seem very good if you want to view things big screen.

But do you think it will work with a VPN? Presumably it will show anything that we have on chrome on our computer?

It works just fine for me with a VPN from a laptop.

Great thanks. I have had enough of faffing around with wires to be able to watch BBC iPlayer so was hoping this would do the trick!!

Worth bearing in mind that they'll take up a USB port for power and a HDMI port for input so it's useful if you have both of those free on your TV.

Power can also be sorted with a normal wall plug.

I have three. Love them.

What does it do for you?

Does the same as AppleTV or Roku. Projects laptop or iPad/phone to TV.

We watch tv either using the laptop to the old CRT tv, or Asus Cube to the flat screen. So the Chromecast doesn't do anything more than the set up we already have? If we moved the Asus to the old TV and got a Chromecast dingle thingy for the newer we would still need the laptop or iPad?

Basically the Chromecast gives your tv the ability to stream content from pretty much any other device. IPlayer, Netflix, photos, videos, YouTube, etc. Whatever device you're steaming from becomes the remote, so to speak. It means we don't have to buy smart tvs, which are more expensive, and then we aren't limited to what the smart tv can do since pretty much anything can be streamed to Chromecast.

My husband and I often watch an episode of something before bed, we used to watch on the laptop but it's much nicer, and much better sound, to watch on Chromecast a tv.

HAR HAR HAR



Last week it was dragon's den... because, you know, that Duncan Bannatyne... Just so irresistible...

At $40 you cannot go wrong with it, but it really depends on what you want it to do. I find it works great with streaming from youtube/netflix, etc, but it doesnt stream local content very well (e.g. if you've downloaded a movie to your laptop, you can "cast" it to your TV, but the performance isnt as good).

Also, it does not work with a VPN unless you have techy skills far superior to mine. It does seem to work OK (not great) with Hola though.

You do need some tech skills to get it to work with vpn, but it's possible, as I've done it at home and for two friends. You need a router that's compatible with dd-wrt, but the instructions both for installing it and seeing it up are actually really good and easy to follow. I didn't know how to do it but followed the instructions verbatim and got it all working no problem.

I also have no issues streaming local content.