How to set up Chromecast in 5 easy steps [VIDEO]
Announced only yesterday, your friends here at Phandroid were lucky enough to get our hands on Google’s newly announced Chromecast. Yesterday we unboxed it for you guys and today, we’ve been spending the better portion of our day playing with the tiny dongle (best, word, ever). Before I give you guys a full hands-on, I thought it’d only be fitting to walk you through the entire setup process which, after about 10 minutes, will have you up and casting. Check it out.
Step 1: Plug in Chromecast
The easiest part in the whole process is physically inserting your Chromecast into your television. If your HDMI port is in a tricky area, use the supplied HDMI extension that come inside the box. Of course, to give the Chromecast some power, you’ll need to plug in the micro USB cable/adapter. Pretty straightforward.
Step 2: Install Chrome
While Chromecast works on a variety of mobile devices (Android, iOS, etc.), there’s only a few apps that support them (YouTube and Netflix, with more on the way). If you were hoping to beam your favorite videos from Hulu Plus, HBO Go, or music from services like Spotify, you’re going to need the Chrome web browser to make that happen. So, our first step involved simply downloading and installing the official Google Chrome web browser for your laptop/desktop computer here.
Step 3: Install Google Cast extension
To be clear, the Chromecast is the product that Google is offerings, while Google Cast is the name of the service making it possible. Make sense? Okay, now that we got that out of the way, you’re going to need to download and install the Google Cast extension for Chrome in order to beam content from your Chrome web browser, to your newly purchased Chromecast. While this isn’t completely necessary, if you want to watch the vast assortment of videos available only on the web (and not just those from specific applications that currently support Google Cast/Chromecast) — do it.
You can download and install the official Google Cast extension for Chrome via the Chrome Web Store here.
Step 4: Install Chromecast desktop/Android application
Now here comes the “hard” part: setting up your Chromecast to recognize your home WiFi network. You can do this one of 2 different ways. Either download and install the official Chromecast application for your desktop/laptop computer here, or download the Android app from the Google Play Store here). From there, you’ll need to wait for the program/app to recognize all available Chromecasts, and once it’s done, you can enter in your WiFi password to get Chromecast connected to the internet.
Step 5: Start casting!
Now that Chromecast is up and running on your home network, you can connect to it with just about any of one of your mobile devices, or using your home desktop or laptop computer. While only few apps and video sites currently support Google Casting, more should be on the way. If you guys have any questions, feel free to shout them out in the comments below. Stay tuned for a full hands on where I walk you guys through Chromecast, and show you everything that it is (and isn’t) capable of.