Photo-A-Day #4350

The reviewer has been compensated in the form of a Best Buy Gift Card and/or received the product/service at a reduced price or for free.

I enjoy gadgets and gizmos. When there is new tech to be had I am an early adopter. I want to start setting up a Smart House to have many things automated. Recently, I was at my friend Brian’s house and he has Google Home. He also has Google Chromecast Audio in several spots of his home. When I saw it in action I knew that I had to get this for our house. Filling the whole house with music from the living room to the bedrooms via streaming WiFi was amazing. It was crystal clear sound. So, when Best Buy was looking for bloggers to try these out I had to be one of those bloggers.

I think the nicest thing that the Google Chromecast Audio does is that it connects to any speaker or device with an AUX jack. You can use many devices and fill your entire home with sound right through your WiFi connection. There are so many audio apps that you can use, too. I recently loaded all of our music onto Google Play Music. Now I can stream that audio directly from my phone to either of my Google Chromecast Audio devices and therefore to whatever rooms I want.

If you want to get real geeky about it, you can set up numerous Google Chromecast Audio devices and group them together to simultaneously play the same music. You could also connect to each individual device and play different music. So, if you wanted something rock and roll in the backyard for a BBQ you could cast to the backyard speakers with your party mix. However, for those who want to have a quieter conversation inside you can cast a more laid back and softer set of music. It is all up to you.

You can even allow your Google Chromecast audio to use Guest Mode and your party guests could share their favorite streaming music, too.

You can do all of this while still having full access to your phone. Your phone does not have to become the music playing device for the party. You are still free to use it to take photos, phone calls and run other apps. By using your phone or tablet to cast, it’s easy to play, pause, or change the volume from anywhere in the home. As I said before you can use your device for the other things you normally use it for plus while streaming, you can still text or call without interrupting what’s playing or draining your battery.

I think what we’ll use these Google Chromecast Audio devices for most of all is for the kids’ room on the Cape. We have an old radio that we used to attach an iPod to so that it would play their sleepytime playlists. Well, the connector for the iPod is shot and it is hard to pick up a station, but there is an AUX jack and there is WiFi in the house. I wish that we had these devices years ago when not having their exact playlist meant an almost sleepless night and lots of tears.

With Google Chromecast Audio We can control the musical selections and even remotely turn the music down. We can stream millions of songs, radio stations and all sorts of apps like Pandora, Spotify, YouTube Music, and Google Play Music. There is a whole list of compatible apps that can be found at chromecast.com/apps.

Being able to control all aspects of the music from our phones lets the kids enjoy music a bit louder when they go to sleep and then softer once they are asleep so the rest of us don’t have to listen to their music all night long.

Total control, wirelessly, what could be better than that?