There’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that Google is canning the Chromecast lineup. This means the company will no longer produce any Chromecast products going forward. The good news is that its new Google TV Streamer device is a much better option.
The Google TV Streamer is a $99,99 set-top box that improves on the Chromecast experience by turning your TV into a Google TV. It has some impressive performance and comes with Thread and Matter support. There’s also a Remote Finder built in so you can track down the remote.
Google is making the TV Streamer in two colours. There’s a porcelain white model and a hazel dark grey one. The box is designed in a thin, low-profile aesthetic and instead of hiding behind your TV like the Chromecast, sits on your counter.
The company wants the Google TV Streamer to integrate into your home. As a result, it includes a Thread border router and connectivity support for Matter. With one button press, users can bring up the Google Home panel on the right-hand side of their TV and easily control their smart home devices. You’ll be able to access your camera footage directly from the menu and interact with all the supported accessories.
At its core, the Google TV Streamer is also a powerful entertainment device. It packs a processor that Google says is 22% faster than the Chromecast. It also comes with double the RAM and 32GB of storage. The device is the first media box to ship with a USB-C port. It also includes an HDMI 2.1a port, Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.1 and a gigabit ethernet port.
Of course, the product comes with all the bells and whistles in codec support. It includes Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision and you can still cast content to the device from other devices. It also has Gemini built-in so you can use AI features to do a whole load of stuff. You can even ask it to generate a wallpaper for your TV.
Google plans on shipping the TV Streamer on 24 September in the US. There’s, of course, no release date or pricing for South Africa. You’ll likely have to import it or purchase it “grey” from a store somewhere down the line.
While the performance of the device is impressive, it still doesn’t beat the NVIDIA Shield and Apple TV. However, Google clearly wanted to make an affordable media box with some future-proof features and I think the TV Streamer might just be that.
