That first-gen Chromecast you’re still using on your bedroom TV? It’s no longer supported by Google.
“Wait, it wasn’t already unsupported?!” you cry!
I know!
I too thought Google had stopped supporting the original Chromecast years back. After all, the dinky $35 dongle made its debut all the way back in 2013 — that’s a decade ago.
Turns out they hadn’t — so kudos to Google for, y’know, staying committed. Not much tech (no, not even stuff Apple put out) tends to get support for that long.
Still, all good (or in this case cheap and cheerful) things come to an end. As spotted by 9to5Google the Chromecast’s support page was updated with the following notice:
Support for Chromecast (1st gen) has ended, which means these devices no longer receive software or security updates, and Google does not provide technical support for them. Users may notice a degradation in performance.
Google
I’ll admit: ‘degradation in performance’ doesn’t sound great, but think about it in context: streaming content and codecs change over time, and if the dongle isn’t being updated to keep pace, things will eventually degrade or stop working.
The most recent update for the OG Chromecast came late last year, delivering a set of bug and security fixes. If you haven’t actually used your OG unit for a while I recommend powering it to grab that update while you can).
Still, there are plenty of newer Chromecasts out there. Some are even cheaper than this OG unit, like the $30 Chromecast with Google TV (HD). Here’s hoping they also benefit from longevity akin to the original unity.