There are plenty of apps that let you use a Chromecast to stream video from internet sites like Netflix and YouTube. There are a growing number that let you stream videos directly from your Android phone or tablet to a TV with a Chromecast too.

Now there’s an app that lets you use a Chromecast to mirror your Android screen. That means anything you do on your phone or tablet shows up on your TV.

There are a few catches though.

Mirror

Developer Koushik Dutta is working on the Mirror app, and as of March 6th, 2014 it’s only available as a beta release. That means you need to follow Koush’s instructions for joining the beta community to try out the app.

At this point you also need a rooted Google Nexus 5 running Android 4.4.2 to use the Mirror app.

Eventually Koush plans to remove the need for root access. It’s not clear that it’ll ever work on a phone other than the Nexus 5, because it’s the only phone available with a hardware VP8 video encoder at the moment.

And if you’re expecting stellar video quality… don’t. Mirror will let you display content from your phone on your big screen TV. But there’s a bit of lag and pixelation. Games are unplayable if you try looking at the TV instead of the phone in your hand.

On the other hand, the app could come in handy if you want to show a presentation, display a website, or put other content that normally doesn’t work with a Chromecast on your TV.

mirror_03

The Mirror app also supports screencast recording, allowing you to save a video of whatever you’re doing on your device. This could come in handy for developers that want to show off features of their Android apps or anyone who wants to create a tutorial video.

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,545 other subscribers

One reply on “Koush’s new app lets you mirror your Android screen to Chromecast”

  1. The Nexus 5 is supposed to be based on the LG G2. Does the G2 not have the hardware encoder?

Comments are closed.