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A comment on Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used? by yumraj on Saturday November 27, 2021 @01:18AM (#29357964)
I know a lot of people seem to love Chromecast, but for some reason using a phone to control TV never made sense to me. I prefer the physical remote. And for sending screen to the TV, the quality was never good.

Our Chromecast and the one included with TV haven’t been used for years.

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Re:Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used? by mrweasel on Saturday November 27, 2021 @03:04AM (#29358464)
The Chromecast was never amazing, and having to use a phone or Chrome to control your TV is really weird. Having a Chromecast was better than nothing though.

However if you’ve used an AppleTV you realise that the Chromecast is actually a pretty terrible solution, compared to just having a device with apps.

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Re:Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used? by johnwalkr on Saturday November 27, 2021 @05:48AM (#29359190)
I have an apple TV at home, but for the price chromecast works well. It's really great for 2 cases:

1. Connected to a tv in a workplace, anyone on the local network can easily use Chrome to share a screen instead of passing around an HDMI cable.

2. Lately hotel rooms sometimes have a chromecast or apple TV, and it's a welcome feature of the room to open netflix on my phone and cast to the TV. In fact I think I should ditch the HDMI cable I keep in my suitcase and replace it with a chromecast. They are pretty small, too.

In both of those cases, I would prefer to only use casting/mirroring and not actually login to the device and/or install apps.

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Re:Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used? by indrora on Saturday November 27, 2021 @04:50AM (#29358959)
That was never the point, though.

The Chromecast meant "oh I want to watch a movie tonight" becomes:

1. open chromecast on TV 2. open stream app on phone 3. push chromecast button 4. pick movie

* it creates social actions: A bunch of friends sitting around can share youtube videos with each other. * it vastly simplifies streaming audio (e.g. spotify)

I bought a chromecast so I could put videos on my tv while I eat dinner. That's legitimately 90% of what I use it for. The other 10% is streaming video from Plex/YT/etc or to dunk my screen for jackbox.

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