Chromecast

Google officially stops updating 1st-gen Chromecast from 2013

Abner Li | May 30 2023 - 6:00 pm PT

Google has quietly announced that support for Chromecast (1st gen) has ended and that there will be no more updates.

This means Google’s inaugural — sorry Nexus Q — key-shaped streaming device will no longer receive software or security updates. Nearly 10 years of support is not a bad run in the grand scheme of consumer electronics, especially for one that was priced at $35. Google warns that end users “may notice a degradation in performance.”

The last firmware version for the 2013 Chromecast is 1.36.159268, which was released in November of 2022 with “bug fixes and improvements.” That itself was the first update in over three years.

On the Chromecast firmware versions and release notes support page (which was last updated on April 27, 2023), Google says:

Support for Chromecast (1st gen) has ended, which means these devices no longer receive software or security updates, and Google does not provide technical support for them. Users may notice a degradation in performance.

The 1st-gen Chromecast looked like a key with an HDMI port on the right-end and a micro-USB port on the other for power with an adapter included. “Chrome” and the browser’s logo were printed on the top. Its affordability was born out of very specs like 512MB of RAM and 2GB of storage.

One neat detail was that the H2G2-42 model number was a reference to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy abbreviation and “Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.”

Google followed the Chromecast with a second-generation model two years later that was puck-shaped. The Chromecast Audio was announced at the same time with an “Ultra” model coming a year later in 2016 at the inaugural Made by Google event. The 3rd-gen arrived in 2018. That should be the last Cast-powered streaming device from Google with all subsequent models moving to Google TV.