What I Use: Chromecast with Google TV (Premium)

We recently switched from Roku to the Chromecast with Google TV, and now I’m sorry I waited for so long. To be fair, it wasn’t entirely my fault, as we couldn’t use this device fully without Apple TV+ support. But with that out of the way, I finally made the move.

As you may recall, Google launched Chromecast with Google TV in September 2020 and despite delivering numerous improvements over the Chromecast Ultra, it arrived with a lower price, costing just $49.99. I knew I wanted one immediately. I’ve always been a fan of Chromecast but have long felt that Google needed to evolve the platform to include an interactive user interface and a dedicated remote control, just like other streaming boxes.

And that’s exactly what Chromecast with Google TV provides. Google TV is the new name for Android TV, and it’s much improved over its predecessor. And it ships with a remote control, a small remote control to be sure, but better the Apple TV remote, and much better than being forced to use a smartphone app. What’s not to love?

I wrote about my initial impressions of the Chromecast with Google TV last October and not much has changed since then from a UX perpective. The Google TV interface is clean and devoid of advertising, a rarity in the Google space, and it’s my favorite TV interface by far. And now that Apple TV+ is finally available, it offers access to all of the services I want: I don’t care about Apple TV+ original content all that much, but I have several hundred movies purchases in Apple’s ecosystem, and now I can access them all on the device I prefer to use. (Well. Almost all of them, as I’m still waiting on Apple TV+ for Android.)

The inability to access Apple TV wasn’t the only reason I had delayed moving to Chromecast with Google TV. The other issue is my TV. As you may recall, we had a little lightning incident last August, and the TV hasn’t worked properly since then. And as it turns out, one of the problems I had been experiencing with the new Chromecast was related to that: I’d test watching content via the device and the HDMI input would suddenly switch over the Roku midstream for no obvious reason.

The Samsung smart TV I use—which is the same as the one you see behind Brad on First Ring Daily—has a breakout box with four HDMI inputs, one of which is labeled as HDMI-ARC, for HDMI Audio Return Channel, a way for multiple inputs to use the same audio controller (like our Sonos Beam soundbar). For a long while, I had had the Roku on HDMI 1, the Apple TV on HDMI 2, and the Fire TV Stick on HDMI 3, but when the Chromecast with Google TV arrived, I swapped out the Fire TV Stick for that.

And, as noted, it never worked completely right. So with Apple TV+ arriving on this platform about a month ago, I decided to unplug the other devices and just use Chromecast with Google TV on HDMI 1 and see how it went. A month later, I can report that it works just great, and I’ve never experienced that weird issue where the TV would switch to another input. Clearly (well, probably), HDMI 3 was a victim to that lightning strike. (These things are never certain.)

The benefits of the Chromecast with Google TV are many. Among them is the performance. Our Roku is a few years old and its creeping slowness is one of the reasons I wanted to look elsewhere in the first place. (That and the ugly, ad-filled UX.) But Chromecast with Google TV reminds me of launching apps on an M1-based Mac: (Almost) everything happens quickly, very quickly, and even after four weeks of use I’m surprised by how fast it all is. Switching apps is often the Achilles Heel on any set-top box, but apps restart so fast on Chromecast with Google TV.

As noted previously, I also like the clean, ad-free user interface, and Google, like Apple and others, is trying to figure out a way to become a hub for all of the services you use, and it promotes content you might like across those services. Amazon does this as well on Fire TV, but that UI is very Amazon-centric. And Apple hasn’t been particularly successful at making this work well yet either.

Google has the best implementation of what I’ll cross-service content promotion and access, and while not all services are on board with this particular bit, many, like Netflix, allow the platform to display “continue watching” tiles so you can quickly jump back to what you were doing. (Some, like Hulu, skip this and force you to launch their app first.)

Overall, I couldn’t be happier with how this works, and especially of what an obvious upgrade this is over the Roku we were previously using. Early on, I also purchased a $20 Ethernet adapter for the Chromecast with Google TV to make sure it was on the cleanest and more reliable connection, too. This is our TV interface now, after all.