Google quietly ends support for the decades-old Chromecast

Google has ended support for the original Chromecast, nearly a decade after the $35 streaming stick launched in 2013. several Google Help pages, “Support for Chromecast (1st generation) has ended,” brought to our attention by the notification 9to5google reads, “These devices no longer receive software or security updates, and Google does not provide technical support for them. Users may notice a drop in performance.”

The end of support appears to have come in late April, when a Support page lists firmware versions Was last updated for each Chromecast model. It doesn’t look like the remaining first-generation Chromecasts will stop working right away, but their functionality is likely to slowly break down over time as the ecosystem around them gets updated and moves forward.

The original Chromecast was a tiny, and surprisingly popular, key-sized device that was designed to plug into an HDMI port on your TV and let you stream video from your phone, tablet, or laptop onto the big screen. Allows you to stream content. Priced at just $35, it was an affordable solution for getting video streaming apps on your TV in an era where many people had yet to make the jump to smart TVs.

Google will release several more Chromecasts in 2016, including a 4K model. But the most recent model, the 2020 Chromecast with Google TV, added its own remote to the equation. Signaling a big shift for the Chromecast lineup, the streaming stick had its own interface, not just relying on being fed content by your smartphone.

Although support for the first-generation Chromecast is officially over, Google hasn’t been regularly updating the device. 9to5google reports Its most recent update was released last November, which was the first update released for the device in three years.