Andrew Heinzman
Immediately after it launched, the Chromecast with Google TV garnered critical acclaim for its low price, snappy performance, and unique features. But it feels like Google has forgotten about its streaming stick. Despite outdated software and mounting performance issues, the Chromecast hasn’t received an update in nearly six months, and customers have noticed.
It’s hard to find any information on the Chromecast without running into complaints about stuttering, crashing, slow performance, or boot loops. Many of these complaints, including one published by Android Headlines, end with some variation of “I stopped using the Chromecast.”
But it’s the Reddit threads that really put this situation into perspective. These threads crop up every few days, and they’re filled with wild speculation about Google abandoning the Chromecast. Clearly, Google has failed to communicate with customers, and these customers are now building their own narrative to explain why their streaming stick doesn’t work how it should.
Anyone else's Chromecast with Google TV super slow now? It's like Google released it and then forgot about it (no surprise there).
— Alex Maxham (@alexmaxham) April 4, 2022
While frustrating, I’m not surprised by customers’ speculation. Google hasn’t made a serious effort to keep this product up to the usual standards. Chromecast with Google TV still runs Android TV 10, despite the fact that Android 12 TV is set to launch later this year. The streaming stick still doesn’t have user profiles, it runs on a security patch from October of 2021, and again, it hasn’t been updated since last December.
These problems would be a bit easier to ignore if the Chromecast didn’t suffer from such widespread performance issues. I mean, the NVIDIA Shield TV also runs on outdated software and lacks some must-have features, but it works better than the Chromecast with Google TV!
Now, I’d like to share a few positive notes, because there’s still hope for the Chromecast. First thing’s first, Google waited six months to roll out the December 2021 update, so the company could simply have a wonky update schedule. And back in January, Google’s Rob Caruso teased some of the Chromecast’s upcoming features and listed some ways that Google will improve the product, indicating its continued interest in Chromecast.
Google hasn’t responded to our request for a comment. If the company gives us a statement, we’ll include it in this article.
