Farewell then, to the Chromecast Audio dongle – Google has confirmed it’s discontinuing the product, which was launched back in 2015. The product is no longer available to buy direct from Google, and it won’t be getting restocked.
For those who aren’t aware, the Chromecast Audio dongle was designed to attach to a regular speaker via a 3.5 mm audio cable, and pipe through audio from Chromecast-compatible apps on other devices – though if you haven’t heard of the Chromecast Audio before now, you’re a bit late to the party. So late in fact that it’s now ending.
The device actually worked very well as a way to add some smarts to an existing speaker, and get audio from plenty of apps at a louder volume without resorting to Bluetooth. However, Google obviously feels the Chromecast Audio’s time is up.
Support will continue
Suspicions were raised in a Reddit post by someone who had ordered a Chromecast Audio, and then a Google spokesperson confirmed to Android Police that the dongle had reached the end of the road after a little over three years.
“Our product portfolio continues to evolve, and now we have a variety of products for users to enjoy audio,” Google says. “We have therefore stopped manufacturing our Chromecast Audio products. We will continue to offer assistance for Chromecast Audio devices, so users can continue to enjoy their music, podcasts and more.”
It sounds as though Google would much rather you used one of its own speakers – or maybe a Sonos One with Google Assistant support – rather than plugging a smart attachment into an existing one.
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