It seems a lie, but It will soon be 10 years since Google launched the first Chromecast on the marketon July 24, 2013. Initially it was only available in the US market, in Spain we had to wait until March 2014 to be able to get hold of the ingenious device that, for only 35 euros, began to make a huge difference in the mode in which we used the television up to that moment.
Let’s remember that, at that time, smart televisions were still a minority option and, in general, very expensive, but that the HDMI connector had already become quite popular, so the vast majority of models on the market at that time They already had at least one entry of this type. Thus, while getting a smart TV was a big blow to the pocket of most, the small but useful and versatile Chromecast was capable of bringing said intelligence from other devices to the televisionand to do it for only 35 euros.
Later, new generations arrived., as well as versions with more features, such as the still very present Chromecast Ultra, which made the leap to 4K resolutions, in addition to supporting HDR. And we are also experiencing the arrival of the second and third generations of the “normal” Chromecast, that is, the one that did not scale as much in terms of image quality but, on the other hand, was a friendlier option for all budgets. Of course, its success led to the appearance of a large number of devices from other manufacturers, although today we can say that only Amazon’s Fire Stick has managed to compete in that market segment.
Everything that begins has an end. Thus, as we can read in Google9to5, Google has ended support for the 1st generation Chromecast and, consequently, it will no longer receive any more updates of any kind. The message to which it alludes, and which at least for now is not yet displayed on the support page in Spanish, indicates the following:
«The support [técnico] for Chromecast (1st generation) has ended, which means these devices no longer receive software or security updates, and Google doesn’t offer technical support for them. Users may notice a performance degradation.»
As surprising as it may seem, there are still quite a few units of the 1st generation Chromecast in use, only in my immediate environment I am aware of at least two of them that, for the televisions in which they are used, continue to be a very suitable option. However, it makes sense that Google considers making users jump to Chromecast with Google TV, which first saw the light of day in 2020 (in fact they went on sale before being publicly presented), which changes CastOS for a personalized version of Android, and that does allow the installation of apps, in addition to having a remote control, and whose price starts at 39.99 euros.
