Can I cast to ChromeCast without the use of Google Home?

[Josh1396]

Hello.

I work with TVs. Lots of my customers seem to have issues with casting to their TVs' inbuilt Chromecast, among the lines of:

• Why can I not cast from an Android device to my TV from the phone's inbuilt Casting function? I can only cast from either Google Home app, Youtube app, Netflix app or similar apps.
• Why can I not cast from my Windows laptop to my TV from the laptop's inbuilt Cast function? I can only cast from Google Chrome browser, using the browser's inbuilt ”Cast to” function.

Now I know that it should not make a difference, since ultimately they can cast apps and mirror the screen from both the Android and Laptop regardless, but this is a valid question - Why can they not cast using the device's inbuilt Cast function, and need to use specific apps to cast from?

Thank you for reading.

[djtetei]

You can cast from any application or browser with cast functionality enabled, but someone, usually the application or browser developer, have to integrate the cast functionality in it.

When you are talking about casting a screen, you are actually refering to mirroring process which is a bit different, because it allows you to work on the screen and all activity from the screen is mirrored on the casting device. Mirroring involves a hands on activity.

Casting, on the other hand, is like "fire and forget", allowing you to do other tasks, wile casting. Suppose you have two web pages open in a browser. You can cast one page to the casting device and continue to browse the other page without interfering with the casting process.

Please, study the difference between casting and mirroring.

[Jeran]

Hey there,

Did you have any more questions or need any additional help? If not, I'll go ahead and lock up this thread in 24 hours.

Just checking up,
Jeran
 

[Jeran]

Hey there!

We haven't heard back from Josh1396, and it's been a few days, so I'm locking the thread. As always, feel free to make a new thread if you have any more questions or concerns.

Thank you for your help, djtetei!

Best regards,
Jeran