David Thacker Blog

So lately I have seem a couple of posts online about the chromecast is dead etc, I have had a chromecast a couple of years now, one in each room. I have never really used it that much apart from when I have not been able to access the content on a FireTV. Always favouring the FireTV with Remote, this would confirm what I have been reading lately online. But the fact is they are wrong everybody is using the chromecast wrong!   About 2 months ago I got a google home, and thought it was cool how you could use it to turn the tv on and play netflix or youtube content.   But now I almost solely use the Chromecast instead of the FireTV or my Android TV box. It makes things so easy. Play, Pause, Rewind choose a specific content.  I think I have only used the FireTV to watch the Grand Tour.   What is Missing from the Chromecast?   For me there is a limited selection of apps that allow voice control, If they brought this out for Iplayer and PrimeVideo I would only be using the...

So I first experienced a digital assistant a few months ago - it was an Alexa it was cool but as I  have not really bought into the Amazon services (No prime membership). I didn't feel that it was the best fit for me. One of the best parts of the digital assistant for me at the time was telling her (can you call it her?) was telling her to play music and powering on the TV to play a video on the FireTV. So I was in search of an alternative the obvious one was a google home. Not wanting to jump in with too much commitment I picked up a home mini while it was on offer. My initial impressions was that it was cool and much friendlier than alexa, the sound quality of the home mini was far better than the Echo dot too that was something I did not expect, not that it is a very difficult benchmark. Digging a little deeper it was easy to set up with the ‘Home App’ once I had got the mini connected to the Wifi (Which seemed a little frustrating and required a few attempts). So what does the ...