Not that the chromecasts are a wonder of ingenuity or anything, it's just that they are stupid enough and big enough to get software support. Nothing else is comparable.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/slp/hdmi-audio-extractor/xc32yz93wutk...
And I can't find anything about whether it will resample the audio (dealbreaker), or how it will negotiate that.
I'm sure there will be a couple of unforseen issues as well. My chromecast occasionally disconnects itself, which means that you would have to rewire the hdmi cable to the TV just to have a clue of what is going on (can my parents or house gets figure that out when I'm not around?).
And yet another device and power brick.
But you realize how extremely niche your problem is, right? That there clearly aren't enough of people in your particularly situation who also want a dongle that haven't already bought one?
How's that for anti-consumer behavior and shooting yourself in the foot?
5 years ago and the entire industry followed suit if they ever even supported it in the first place.
> will do the same with whatever Chromecast protocol it's using now, meaning these abandoned devices are as good as dead soon.
Seeing as Google still sells a handful of products, and just released a brand new product, that uses the Chromecast protocol I'm gonna call bullshit on this claim.
> Google breaks device casting capability over and over so for years now Android casting has never reliably worked when AirPlay works perfectly.
Chromecast has been rock solid for half a decade. It works so well that Vizio uses it nearly exclusively for their TV lineup and has for a few years now. Chromecast has been a massive success. Your claim is wildly out of touch at best, if not just outright FUD.
The 3-something year old hardware dongle is no longer being made, that's it. That's the entirety of the news. The Cast project as a whole is not being canned. Cast-enabled speakers, receivers, etc... are all still widely available from a wide number of manufacturers, that's not changing.