Speaking today at the Ubiquity Dev Summit, Rishi Chandra (Vice President of Chromecast and Android TV at Google) announced that the multiroom audio feature that debuted with Chromecast Audio will be extended to any Google Cast for Audio device via an update to the SDK.
The announcement was understandably a little light on details, being part of a keynote address, but the ability for multiple speakers from different manufacturers to interoperate in such a way has always been the promise of such standards.
We’ve cued up the keynote to the correct timecode if you want to watch:
Having received 2 Chromecast Audio devices recently, I’ve had the opportunity to use the multiroom audio feature and can attest that it works brilliantly and I immediately wanted it on all of my Google Cast-enabled devices. The ability to walk from room to room and have my podcast just playing there was an experience I’d been waiting for.
As is the way with new features we will most likely have to wait for the OEMs to update their devices to support the new feature. Hopefully, we won’t have long to wait.
Have you tried multi-room audio? How did you find it? Tell us in the comments.
I have a Chromecast Audio plugged into each of my two AVRs and the multi room feature is amazing – the sync is perfect, and casting from Play Music is really easy. I’m going to grab a couple more CCAs and plug them into some old Logitech speakers I have lying around – whole home audio for $200!