According to Chrome evangelist Fran§ois Beaufort, it appears that the latest version of Chrome OS on the developer channel now allows you to close the lid of your Chromebook when your streaming a tab to Chromecast without it getting shut off, or suspended. According to Fran§ois, this is said to work the same as the docked mode. Basically Chrome OS considers the Chromecast as an external connected display while casting.
Now we don’t know a whole lot about this new feature in the latest dev update to Chrome OS (and I don’t have a Chromebook here right now to check it out myself), but it does sound like a pretty good feature that many of us are going to love. Especially those that use Chromecast on their Chromebook to stream a tab or watch a video, etc. You can view the update in the source at the bottom of this post, which is over on Chromium’s website.
For those that use a Chromebook as their main computer, or only computer, this is a pretty big update, and new feature. Now remember that this is in the developer channel, so you’ll probably find some bugs here. I’d suggest waiting for it to hit at least beta channel before you decide to try it out, unless you’re prepared to take that jump. But being able to continue casting a tab from your Chromebook to your Chromecast and being able to close the lid without anything happening to it is a pretty big deal in my opinion. It’s something I hope can somehow be brought to Chrome on Windows, Mac and Linux.
How many of you out there are on the dev channel of Chrome OS? Have any of you checked out this new feature yet? Be sure to let us know how it’s working out for you in the comments down below.
Source: Chromium