Like many of you, I take the Google Chromecast and the Cast protocol for granted today, but that wasn’t the case 10 years ago when Google first announced them. I remember being in awe at Google’s solution for the phone-to-TV streaming problem. How brilliantly simple was the idea of plugging a small internet-connected dongle into your TV that you could control from your phone?
Light software and basic hardware resulted in a cheap $35 price tag that suddenly made streaming shows and movies “disposable.” I didn’t need a new, expensive smart TV anymore; I could just buy a Chromecast and elevate my entire experience. And I wasn’t alone in thinking that. Google’s dongle garnered millions of sales and universal acclaim for its ease of use. It quickly became one of the company’s first and biggest hardware success stories.