This morning, Google announced the second generation Chromecast. It’s not a huge difference over the first generation, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It is now coming in three colors, and has improved WiFi, adding support for 5GHz. Google also unveiled the Chromecast Audio which is essentially a WiFi adapter for your speakers. So now you can send music to your non-Bluetooth speakers. Which is a pretty cool feature. Google also unveiled a redesigned Chromecast app which has a few cool new features. These new features include “What’s On” this basically shows you what is currently playing on a number of Chromecast-enabled apps. There’s also “Fast Play” this allows you to play videos faster than ever before. No doubt that the 5GHz WiFi definitely helped with that.
The second generation Chromecast is currently on sale now. And it’s going for the same price as the previous generation was going for. It has an asking price of $35. Which isn’t a bad price at all, and it’s likely to be sold out pretty quickly. While the Chromecast Audio is currently up for pre-order, also going for $35. It should be launching sometime in October, however we don’t have any concrete dates for when they will be shipping just yet. You can pre-order the Chromecast Audio from the Google Store, and pick up the Chromecast from the Google Store as well. As long as you can add it to your shopping cart, as the new Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P are also up for pre-order right now. Both the Chromecast and Chromecast Audio are also available from Walmart and Best Buy today. We will be sure to add links to this post as soon as they are available. Additionally, they will be available in 17 countries.
Second generation Chromecast definitely is a nice upgrade to the Chromecast and adding the Chromecast Audio to the family was a nice touch as well. Some of the apps that are already compatible with Chromecast include Netflix, Hulu+, CBS, Google Play Movies & TV, Google Play Music, Plex, Spotify and many more. Spotify was actually just announced to work with Chromecast Audio this morning, at Google’s event in San Francisco. So now you can stream Spotify to your favorite speakers throughout the house.
Chromecast Audio – Google Store