Paul A. Luzzi

April 13, 2014

Setup a new Google Chromecast today.   Pretty neat device. Basically, this is the process :

• Insert the Chromecast device into HDMI4 on my TV
• The device needs “external” power. It can come from the included a/c adapter, or the included usb adapter. I needed the long USB extension AND the a/c power adapter as I didn’t have a free usb.
• Had to set my laptop network adapter settings from my normal static ip to dhcp.
• Switch the tv to input4, which sends a signal to the device – and it found chromecast.
• Navigated my laptop browser to http://www.google.com/chromecast/setup
• Downloaded the setup app.
• Run the setup app on the laptop
• Note : this process changed my wireless settings to “chromeast5128” sid (which is the default name of the device) – it then found the Chromecast, and connected to it.
• The setup app stepped me through setting up the device on my own network
• Note : the setup does not let me choose an IP.
• Name the device, and setup the houses own SSID – i named my simply “Chromecast”
• Note : had to rerun the step twice because it failed to connect the first time.
• After this, the device then downloaded an updated firmware which took a while, but there is a progress graph on screen. After it reaches 100%, it seems to power off.
• Switch the tv inputs away, and then back to input4, to “re-power” the device.
• Device then booted with the new firmware/update.
• I set my laptop back to static IP like I prefer.

Key information as the device went through its process :

• my network sidebar widget showed my network changing from my default network, to a network that shared the default name of my Chromecast device “chromecast5128”
• my network sidebar widget showed my ip changed from my normal network segment, to a 192.168.255.251 address, which leads me to believe that the device is on the 192.168.255.0 network and I may be able to do all this without the applet.
• The initial network sync process is validated when the app shows a code in the laptop, that matches a code on screen.

After all that, I pointed my laptop google chrome browser (must be greater than v27) to the same setup url above, and I obtained the chromecast browser extension. Then its as simple as just bringing something up in the browser, and clicking the chromecast button – and things appear on screen. Super cool.

Note : since this is a DHCP type appliance, it required me setting up a DHCP lease reservation, based on MAC address, in order to force the device to use the IP that I wanted.   Setting that up in a new pool on my /etc/dhcpd.conf file took care of that for me.