Have I gone and bought the wrong thing?

[Martin Cox]

My daughter has a Galaxy S4 mini phone running Android KitKat and recently hooked it up to my Samsung bedroom TV using the built in screen mirroring app on the TV and the phone.
She wanted to be able to do screen mirroring on her own bedroom tv (an older Bush model that does not have screen mirroring) so I looked on the internet and the new Chromecast promised so much that I bought one.
However, we eventually got the phone connected to it and managed to get a Youtube video (selected on the phone) to play on the Chromecast.
So, that casting part worked ok.
Next we downloaded Chrome to her phone so she could access games from the Chrome web store only to find out that the games would not work on her phone.
Do I need to use another app to display her phone screen on her TV (true screen mirroring) or will the Chromecast only be any good for displaying YouTube videos (which she could already watch using her NOW TV box)
Is there a plugin box that I can get her that will enable full screen mirroring like my 2016 Samsung bedroom TV?
Thanks for any replies.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome back! It's not a Chromecast issue--it sounds like you're trying to run Chrome OS web apps on an Android phone, which won't work. Chrome apps on the Chrome Web Store are designed for the Chrome browser on either a desktop computer (PC or Mac), or a Chromebook.

Is the Google Cast app installed? See this help page: https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/6059461?hl=en

 

[Martin Cox]

Thanks, I have installed the cast app on her phone and there are a limited choice of games and apps available.
I think that the confusion arises when people think casting is the same as screen mirroring.

 

[blak8830]

With Google Cast, and the chromecast unit, you should have an option to "cast screen", which lets anything you see on your phone's screen, be displayed on your tv.
What is displayed will not necessarily fill the screen though.
Depending upon your phone's version of Android, you may have a pulldown for casting the screen, otherwise you should find an option to Cast screen/audio in the menu in the Google Cast app - look at the 3 bars on the top left of the app.