My Google Nest speaker setup as of Nov 2025 consists of:
- 5x Nest Audio and
- 3x Chromecast Audio (CCA)
Due to CCA being so old, they are connected to a separate 2.4 GHz SSID issued by my single home router/access point, while the Nest Audios enjoy the main 5 GHz wifi.
All devices individually work beautifully. I can cast to them, I can set them up, and even got them through last year's certificate hickup without trouble.
However, starting at some point around July/August 2025, groups that contain one or multiple CCAs have gained one new issue: these groups do no longer appear in any listing of any "Cast to ..." menu in an app that relies on the "stock casting" code.
In Google Home itself, these groups still appear fine with all speakers (both Nests and CCAs) looking well.
Bonus info: I even can prove to myself that there is nothing "fundamentally" going wrong, as an independent "Cast to..." implementation by VLC on Android shows: in their listing, after opening the cast menu several times, these groups reluctantly start appearing and, once connected, just work fine. I have no knowledge of the exact protocol, but something in vlc/modules/stream_out/chromecast's code seems to be more robust against the current situation. Something in Google's enumeration of available media receivers logic apparently is off, filtering out legacy devices.
Can I get them back?
