Will there be Chromecast Receiver Emulator or an alternate app that acts as a receiver for development?

Question

Will there be any sort of emulator for the Chromecast receiver itself? Or possibly a way I could run a secondary Chrome window on my laptop that behaves the same as the one on the receiver itself. This way developers can test their sender applications without actually having the physical receiver device on-hand.

Answer 1

Update: Our latest effort is a complete chromecast v2 receiver, called YouMap Chromecast Receiver, works very well on Android devices, including FireTV: http://forum.xda-developers.com/hardware-hacking/chromecast/app-youmap-chromecast-receiver-android-t3161851

We just released a chromecast emulator on iOS, freely available from App Store:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rplay/id692511073?mt=8

Spent a few days to emulate Chromecast inside rPlay, finally it can find the rPlay (on Raspberry Pi) as a chromecast device, and it can send youtube URL redirection. still long way to go, but seems possible.

Attached is a screenshot of Youtube on Nexus 7, the Chromecast button is shown, when clicked, it will show rPlay as the device.

More info on rPlay: http://www.vmlite.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&Itemid=158&func=view&catid=23&id=10991

We will release chromecast emulators for windows/Linux/Mac/android/iOS in September.

Answer 2

This project is in early development. Youtube works, at least.

https://github.com/dz0ny/leapcast

Answer 3

There doesn't appear to be one provided, but it should be possible, perhaps as a Chrome extension.

Fun facts: a ChromeCast compatible receiver would need to respond to DIAL Service Discovery requests sent via SSDP. Assuming it identified itself correctly and responded to DIAL commands, it would also need to open a WebSocket and respond to commands sent from the sender which are serialized JSON arrays containing the application namespace string and an application-specific JSON object as the first and second array elements. The receiver would at minimum only need to respond to two application namespaces ("cm" and "ramp" for the MediaProtocolCommand) in order to be compatible with the SDKs.

Answer 4

Another one (in early stage though) is CheapCast.

CheapCast is an Android App (no root required) that aims to emulate the ChromeCast Dongle. It allows your Android Device to act as target (1st screen) for ChromeCast-enabled Applications (like YouTube, Google Music).

App: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=at.maui.cheapcast
Demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ktmrXgj9qQ
Source: https://github.com/mauimauer/cheapcast (not yet available)

Answer 5

You can run Chrome and install this Chromecast receiver emulator extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cr-cast/acmfmindblghbicdipoakcolegkcddbk

If you want to understand its workings, you can unpack the CRX and view the code.

Update 2015: CR-cast no longer works with current Chromecast API.

Answer 6

Look this site:

http://hackaday.com/2013/08/02/leapcast-emulates-chromecast-in-your-chrome-browser/

Here the project:

https://github.com/dz0ny/leapcast

Answer 7

Here is the link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.softmedia.receiver.castapp&hl=en

I am using the CastReceiver application on android to receive Chromecast.

So for that, just you need an extra android device to run the application.

Answer 8

You can try this project https://github.com/vbaicu/mMusicCast

works great with youtube if you're like me and use the chromecast only to stream music.