In a house full of musicians, music is a daily part of our lives. If one teenager isn’t creating or playing back a track, then I’ve got my headphones on singing along to my favorite Christian song, or hubby is singing to his favorite oldies on the radio. We all dance around the house like loons, it’s just what we do.
Disclosure: We were compensated in the form of a Best Buy Gift Card and received the Google Chromecast Audio at a reduced price or for free to review.
My kids constantly have friends over, and with the friends come the devices – MP3 players, smartphones, tablets, etc. One of the things that I love about the Google Chromecast Audio device is that it uses WiFi instead of Bluetooth, so you can literally steam crystal clear hi-res sound from any device that has WiFi capability. The boys – and all of their friends – just need to connect to the device and instant music. Granted, I don’t always want to hear the same type of music that they enjoy listening to – so that’s when I pop on the headphones and go off into my own little world.
During the day when they are off at school however and hubby is off at work, my secret pleasure is watching my favorite shows on Netflix. I can watch the movie or show on my Nextbook next to my laptop and stream the audio for whatever I am watching to my Bluetooth speaker behind me. I just plug in the Chromecast and I get hi-res, crystal clear sound with all the movie effects and bells and whistles as though I was sitting right there in the theater watching the movie!
Setting Up Your Chromecast Audio
So I can hear you asking now, What if I’m not technically savvy? Will I be able to use this? The answer is YES! It is super easy to setup!
- Plug in your Google Chromecast Audio device to your speaker and turn it on.
- Download the Google Home app on your device.
- Click Accept to agree to the terms of service and privacy policy.
- Open the app and go to your settings to find your device and just link it to your device. If it shows that you are linked you are ready to go.
- If you are listening to music, when you open your app, all you need to do is click on the cast icon.
I will say that if you are listening to the audio of a show, the voice may lag a bit from the video. On our wifi connection it was not very noticeable (I thought) but my son picked up on it right away when I was watching Stranger Things on Netflix. However, using the Xfinity Stream app on my Nextbook and casting the audio to my speaker, worked beautifully. Not a bit of lag time at all!
Small Size Fits In with Any Decor
I’m a bit anal when it comes to what is on my tables and how my living room looks, since it is the main room of our apartment and where we do the majority of our entertaining. My coffee table is for our family photos, current magazines, and our candy dish. My end table next to the recliner (where I usually sit) is where I have my speaker and Google Chromecast Audio set up.
As you can see, it takes up no space at all leaving room for all of the other items that are on my end table at the moment.
I love the fact that even when I need to work at the kitchen table on the laptop, and the television is behind me, I can still watch my favorite show on the nextbook tablet and listen to the music and sound on the speaker behind me without having to swivel around to see the television every few minutes.
What I really love is that you can even have multiple Chromecast devices throughout the house and group them together to play your music or listen to your show no matter where you happen to be in the house. Hate it when my bluetooth headphones get out of range of the device I’m using it on. You don’t have that issue with the Chromecast Audio device because it runs off of WiFi! If you have the WiFi signal in your room – you can connect your device to a speaker in that room and listen to it in that room. If you leave your phone casting in the kitchen – you can still hear your favorite music when you have to drop off a load of laundry upstairs on the speaker in the bathroom or in the upstairs hallway.
There are a million different ways that you can find to use this device. You can check out all of the various apps available at chromecast.com/apps to stream millions of songs, radio stations, podcasts and more with apps like Pandora, Spotify, iHeart, YouTube Music, and Google Play Music just to name a few.
I’m thrilled with ours and can’t wait to get a few more so that I can torture the kids by casting my 80s music on their speakers! (evil mommy grins) Stop by and see the friendly folks at Best Buy today and get a few of your own!
We have Chromecast for to cast movies etc. so the audio chromecast would really be a good addition. We all have playlist that we enjoy listening to often so this would really be worth trying.