I purchased a chromecast HD, that's all it says on the box. No generation stuff. If I chose the wrong generation, so be it. It's the $28 version. Anyway. I plugged it into my smart television, a samsung 8. It's in HDMI 3. Only location left to choose from. The television, recognizes the device. My wife's Google Pixel 7 Pro, can't find it. We have gone through the instructions and steps backwards and forwards and sideways, even up and down and we can't get her phone to work correctly with the device. The glitch point appears to be in two places.
We have never seen a screen at any time from unboxing it to right now, that asks for her google account. Her email address versus mine. The other glitch point is when we are asked "What device are you looking for?" Chromecast /Google TV is one of the choices. We choose it. Next screen says to plug it in and wait 45 seconds for it to warm up. It's been plugged in since we took it out of the box and plugged it in to the wall. Trust me, 45 seconds has long since come and gone. I click Next. Now it tells us that it is searching for device, and all these Picasso like shapes dance around on the screen. About 10 seconds or so later, it gives up and returns to the What are you looking for screen. Endless loop. The phone can't find the device so it gives up. Doesn't tell us it can't find the device, it just panics and runs back to the previous screen.
To answer a litany of questions
Yes, the television and phone are connected to the same internet WIFI device
Yes, bluetooth is on
Yes, Location is not only on, it has been given permission to do everything except live with us and take over the world.
Again, the television sees the device and for the purposes of the installation to the phone, is currently set to HDMI 3 port
As I said, the device is plugged in for power and the LED is bright white
At one point during the evening while on with Tech Coach, we did actually get one of the created locations Living room 2, to cast the phone screen to the television. Her home screen with our christmas picture was there on the tv screen in all it's glory. I opened Prime Video and there was Jack Ryan now streaming. I tapped Watch. The opening credits began. The problem is that you could hear them, but you couldn't see the show. The pause, play and go forward 10 or go back 10 line was visible, but no Jack. I could hear the music, but no picture, just a black screen.
Then tech coach tried something new and now we are back to no broadcasting at all. Mirroring doesn't work. Says it is, but the television begs to differ.
The reason we use my wife's phone and steer clear of using the television directly is because Viasat has that limited unlimited data set up that you get so much data based on what you want to pay for, and when you eat all of it up, you are moved to the back of the line and your platform works slower. So we try not to use WIFI unless we absolutely have to. Mobile Data on our phones actually appears to be unlimited. We've used Smart View on our Samsung phones for years. Easy, peasy. Just make sure the phone and the television are blueteethed, open your streaming platform, choose a show, hit Smart View, and make sure mirror screen is selected, and off you go. You use mobile data only, even though smart view needs your WIFI as a crutch to work, you don't use any wifi data. What could be better?
NOW, it appears, Samsung has decided that's too easy, someone isn't getting paid, and they have discontinued using smart view. So it appears. According to Verizon. So, she got the Pixel 7 for its great camera. Now our world is turned upside down. We can move the prime video app to the television, but, we don't want to eat up our data. The people at verizon told us that chromecast doesn't use WIFI data, but uses Mobile data when streaming, just like smart view. Seems odd that's the case, if you have to have your television connected to the wifi.
Android devices eat data when connected to wifi like goats eat grass. My wife leaves her phone on after printing a picture off her phone, and the goats go nuts. Next morning I check the usage and we've gone from 1.4 yesterday, to 5.9 today. All because she left her wifi on.
That's why we use smart view, the phone, and not direct stream from the televison.
I can go on, but I think it's time to let someone trying to help me get in a word edge wise. Thank you
John
