Controlling Chromecast: AirCast APK Released

[Koush] is at it again, this time releasing AirCast, an Android app that’ll push videos to the Chromecast from Dropbox, Google Drive, and your phone’s Gallery. Astute Hackaday readers will recall that AirCast has been around for a few weeks now, but limited to only his whitelisted Chromecast. As [Koush] explains it, he had to reverse engineer the protocols and now he simply avoids the Chromecast SDK entirely. If you’re lucky enough to have a Chromecast, you’ll want to hurry and grab the APK (direct download link) and have some fun with it before it self-destructs. [Koush] isn’t ready to release it for more than a 48 hour period, but we encourage you to take advantage of AirCast and contribute to his call for feedback, bugs, and crash reports. You have a little under a day left.

See “AllCast” work its magic in the video below. No, that’s not a typo. Apparently [Koush] has been struggling with available names for the app, and you’ll hear him call it “AllCast” in the Youtube video. That name was taken for some other product, though, and “AirCast” has now replaced it. If you suddenly regret not immediately ordering a Chromecast and are sitting this one out, go read [Mike’s] rant and get psyched up for when they’re back in stock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SShcS9fN0_0

15 thoughts on “Controlling Chromecast: AirCast APK Released

  1. Got it installed, thanks! Will try this out on my Chromecast when I get home. Perfect timing, I’m about to take a trip to NY and will be relying on my Chromecast for entertainment outside of conference hours, granted I get bored enough to watch stuff off my phone (spoiler: I will).

      1. Not earth-shattering in the least, but there have been several items that have sold me on the ROI of the Chromecast. Like anything, I think it just comes down to what an individual needs.

        1) I personally give a great deal of weight to setup and ease of use, and the Chromecast has given me zero grief, so far. Any device that can go from unboxing to operational in under, literally, 5 minutes has already scored points.

        2) The Chromecast also came around in a very timely manner for me. I’m working on building a mobile media center in conjunction with a Samsung S3. All I want is access to Netflix, Youtube and my Plex library when we’re on long road trips (read as “are we there yet” minimization protocol). I’ve tried all manner of HDMI adapters, and all of them have failed miserably, including the ones made by Samsung (for f*ck’s sake). I considered just using my RasPi to do this, but I want to control what’s happening on the display monitor for the rear seats while up front. The Chromecast makes that requirement a breeze. I know what my kid is watching because I put it on, and I don’t have to perform ninjutsu, uber-yoga to try and look back and choose something else for them to watch.

        3) Based on my requirements, the only thing missing is Plex support. I can already stream some videos from Plex using the Chrome plug-in, but some videos don’t pass on sound (MKV, etc.), and this also requires I have my laptop up and running rather than just my phone.

        Misc.) I do hope that it will eventually support mobile device mirroring so that anything I have on my phone shows up on my connected TV.

        1. A key element here is the possibility of finally making some use of that motorola lapdock I purchased, but could never get any use out of because of the absurd daisy chain of adapters required to go from micro HDMI Femaie on the O-Droid/RPi, to micro HDMI male on the lapdock.

          Now I can just get a Chromecast and cut the tether to the O-Droid instead of having to carpet tape it to the back of the screen, or use my lapdock like Shinji dragging a cord behind his Evangelion.

  2. Lets just say removing the time limit involves :cond_21 and getRuntime()
    I don’t want to piss Koushik Dutta off by saying anymore, its his baby. I just wanted to be able to mess with my Chromecast, not that im getting anywhere with it. I just think if you know what im referencing you probably already did it or can figure it out pretty quick because the tools are readily available.

    Also i think he didn’t make it hard to remove because the average person isn’t going to go digging in java and if you want to you will be able to remove it. It is just a way of keeping people on the latest version so he can be able troubleshoot vs having to deal with outdated builds and people asking why something doesn’t work on an older version.

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