I have 2 first-generation Chromecasts for almost 5 years now and I absolutely love them. They are the reason why I didn’t buy a Smart TV, why I don’t need a TV service, and why I don’t need a DVD or Blu-ray player. They are still servicing the whole family well after every one of use has replaced our phones a couple of times. And they only cost me $35 each to get it in the first place.
A big thank-you to Google and the engineers behind the scene to bring us and the world with such a great gadget that not only brings us a log of fun but changes the way how we consume media as well.
The story of Chromecast
The 5th birthday blog post from Google has an interview with Googler Majd Bakar, the first Chromecast engineer, and his wife, Carla Hindie, the inspiration behind Chromecast. Here is how it got started:
Majd: This is back around 2008 or so. Carla was always looking for new stuff to watch, and I noticed how she went about starting a movie. She would go to her laptop to pick a movie using a streaming service, add it to her queue, and then close the laptop. Then, she’d open the movie on her gaming device. I used to watch her and think, “This is really hard … Why do you do that?”
Carla: Basically, back then TV interfaces were hard to use. The search was difficult and very slow.
Majd: I said, “Okay. Let’s build an interface where everything happens on the phone, and only the video plays on the large screen. And let’s make the hardware device that enables this experience as small and as hidden as possible.”
That’s it. It starts small and has become a huge success that inspires many other great development as well.