In praise of Chromecast

We recently upgraded our main living room TV to a Sony Bravia Smart TV. The old Toshiba Regza migrated upstairs to my computer workshop and replaced a really old fish-bowl CRT television which was mainly used for me to watch football. To take better advantage of the new HD widescreen, I added a Google Chromecast stick making it effectively a Smart TV controlled from computer, tablet or phone.

What a revelation. Anything that I watched on the PC monitor can now be cast, or streamed to the wall-mounted widescreen. It integrates really well with the Google Chrome browser and is relatively inexpensive (£30) for a brilliant gadget. It also included a neat mains USB charger for those older TVs that don't have a USB socket like mine. I can now catch-up on missed programs (in HD quality) for the BBC channels and will soon be able to do the same for ITV, Channel 4, etc.

Wonderful WiFi

I've just realised the impact that WiFi has had on a normal domestic environment. Just by listing the devices that are regularly connected to it and hence my 100mbps Virgin media cable broadband connection.

• Two laptops and three desktops
• One Smart TV and one Chromecast TV
• One Nexus 7 tablet
• One HTC smartphone
• One Sonos bridge and speakers
• And for completeness, via Gigabit Ethernet, one desktop, one Home Server and one NAS box

As yet, no wireless printers, photo cameras or CCTV cameras, etc.  Still not bad for one house.