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Chromecast Now Lets Your Guests Take Over Your TV Without Needing Your WiFi Password

posted by Blackmoore on Friday December 19 2014, @03:37AM   Printer-friendly
from the people-still-watch-TV? dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

link: Chromecast Now Lets Your Guests Take Over Your TV Without Needing Your WiFi Password

Back in June, Google announced a rather nifty new feature coming to Chromecast: your friends and house guests would soon be able to connect to your Chromecast without being on your WiFi network, thanks to the clever use of magic ultrasonic sounds.

after a few months of silence, that feature launches.

One bummer of a caveat, though: it’ll only work if your friend’s phone is running Android, for now. Why? It all comes down to that age-old problem: iOS apps aren’t allowed to do certain things required to make it work, so they’re rolling with it on Android until that changes.

Guest mode is off by default. Flip it on, and your Chromecast will start displaying a PIN on its idle screen. Meanwhile, your TV will start emitting ultrasonic sounds, inaudible to the human ear*, which Chromecast-enabled apps on your phone will be listening for. When the two find each other, everything falls into place and the pairing is made.

[* No word yet on if non-human ears (i.e. dogs) can hear it. If your dog starts whining whenever your Chromecast is on, you should probably turn guest mode back off.]

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 20 2014, @03:49AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 20 2014, @03:49AM (#127654)

    After all, magic is what you're not accustomed to.
    in 1985 the idea of reading a disc with laser was magic, today reading audio with a needle on a groove is magic.

    How so? One of the first music CDs came out in 1981. Also, the first commercial LaserDiscs came out in 1978. If in 1985 you though it was magic then you must have been a backwoods rube.