Denon LG and Sony will becomes the first suppliers to offer audio products incorporating Google Cast for Audio technology, which embeds Chromecast technology into speakers, sound bars, and A/V receivers.
Products equipped with Google Cast will stream music from Cast-enabled iOS and Android music apps via Wi-Fi from the Internet, with the user’s Android smartphone delivering control.
Because the Google Cast-Ready products pull content directly from the cloud, Google said, users will get the best audio quality and can multi-task on a phone, tablet, or laptop without straining the battery. Cast-ready products will work with a growing number of apps, including Deezer, Google Play Music, iHeartRadio, NPR One, Pandora, Rdio, TuneIn, and others.
Denon plans to add Google Cast to its Heos wireless multiroom-audio speakers, enabling users to cast music from a phone to Heos speakers throughout the house. Although Google Cast for Audio ” will let users cast to one cast location at a time,” said Heos product marketing director Nick Murrells,” users that have multiple Heos devices and have grouped those devices will see the group appear as a destination in the Cast-enabled music app.
They simply select the group name to cast audio from that app to the group – perfectly synchronized.” For its part, Sony will embed Cast for Audio in several new soundbars and two new A/V receivers. Availability in the company’s first wireless-multiroom audio speakers wasn’t clear. LG launched its first wireless multiroom-audio speakers and soundbars here at CES and presumably will include the technology in all.
The first Google Cast Ready products will be available in Australia in the second half of 2015.
Google said more brands will follow in 2015.
