Google’s 10-year-old Chromecast is busted, but a fix is coming

You can keep an eye on the support thread in the official support forums for updates on that front.

Second-gen Chromecast still supported

Google stopped supporting the original 2013 Chromecast after 10 years, so it would not have been surprising to see the second gen officially join the Google Graveyard this year. Perhaps that was even Google’s intention. However, there was no announcement or offer of Google Store credit for an alternative device—a common tactic when Google kills a device people still use. However, the Chromecast just stopped working when its certificate expired. This naturally upset Chromecast fans.

The error messages are not helpful.

Credit:
Google

There are plenty of people yelling at Google online about this because the devices remain hugely popular, and that’s no surprise. The 2015 streamers sold millions of units before they were removed from sale in 2019. Unless you demand 4K video, the 2015 Chromecast still does its job. It has slightly slow but serviceable Wi-Fi, and TVs still have HDMI ports. So there are probably millions of second-gen Chromecasts dangling from the backs of TVs around the world. And there is no modern equivalent of the Chromecast Audio in Google’s lineup, a device that people still covet and which regularly sells for almost $100 on eBay.

That’s the great thing about the Chromecast. Unlike most Google products—and to borrow a phrase—the Chromecast just works. There’s no constantly changing, ad-infested home screen, nor is there a remote to get lost in the couch or burn through batteries. You simply connect with your phone and go. Yes, these models are almost a decade old, but there’s no reason to toss them in the garbage. The fact that so many people are upset about the outage is a tribute to the reliability of the Chromecast paradigm.

Legacy Chromecast fans have reason for hope, though. Google tells Ars Technica that it has not abandoned these devices. Regardless of its initial intentions, the company is committed to fixing this certificate issue, and the dongle could still have more life in it. “We still support Chromecast v2,” Google said.

We can’t say how long that support commitment will last, but this product will have an even longer lifespan than the iconic original Chromecast dongle.