Options to mirror pixel 2 to tv

[Android Central Question]

Can one tell me the options for mirroring a Pixel 2 to a TV?

I currently have very poor DSL service and no option for cable. I have an unlimited data plan for my phone and would like to use my Pixel 2 to watch Netflix, Hulu, etc.on the television.

Can anyone tell me if this is possible and what I might need to accomplish?

I have tried to search and have not found much to point me in a good direction.

Thank you in advance for your time,

Mike

 

[Android Central Question]

Can someone tell me the options for mirroring a Pixel 2 to a TV?

I currently have very poor DSL service and no option for cable. I have an unlimited data plan for my phone and would like to use my Pixel 2 to watch Netflix, Hulu, etc.on the television.

I have a Roku 3 but I would like to use my phone mirroring rather than the hotspot as Verizon may try to throttle beyond 15gb of hotspot data. Again DSL service is not reliable.

Can anyone tell me if this is possible and what I might need to accomplish?

I have tried to search and have not found much to point me in a good direction.

Thank you in advance for your time,

Mike

 

[Rukbat]

Use a Chromecast. That's what I use with my Pixel 2 and it works just fine. (Unless Verizon throttles your data from YouTube). Pixel-to-TV is via wifi, so it has nothing to so with Verizon - the signal never leaves the house. (You will need an internet wifi connection that the Chromecast can use at first, when it sets up, downloads the latest firmware, etc. But after that it's phone->router->TV.)

 

[mdelliott]

Use a Chromecast. That's what I use with my Pixel 2 and it works just fine. (Unless Verizon throttles your data from YouTube). Pixel-to-TV is via wifi, so it has nothing to so with Verizon - the signal never leaves the house. (You will need an internet wifi connection that the Chromecast can use at first, when it sets up, downloads the latest firmware, etc. But after that it's phone->router->TV.)

Hi Rukbat,

I bought a Chromecast last night and I was able to set it up using my DSL. However once I my DSL signal started dropping I was not able to send the signal to the Chromecast. It was not an option on Netflix, Hulu or anything. Once the DSL came back up it started working again after a while.

The message on the television from Chomecast was basically that it was looking for a internet connection.

I was very hopeful that the Guest mode would work. But neither of our Pixel 2 would see the Chromecast.

I am guessing that the Chromecast needs to maintain an active internet connection all of the time? What I am up against is that our DSL provider is not able to keep our connection from dropping, our cable company is not able to run a connection to our house. So I am trying to watch streaming services on my phone as display that on a television to save hotspot (15gb) for computer activities for work/school.

Unfortunatel if the Chromecast requires a constant internet connection it does not help with what I am trying to do.

Maybe I need a forum for full time RV travelers since that is something probably similar.

 

[Rukbat]

On Pie, one of the icons in the pulldown is "cast". So pull down the notification bar, pull it down again if you don't see the cast icon (edit it and drag the icon up if it's still not there), then hit the cast icon and you should be able to choose your Chromecast. Then your phone will be mirrored to the TV. Then watch Netflix on the phone - you'll see it on the TV.

 

[mdelliott]

I believe I may have this solved for at least my situation or to a point where I can live with it.

Again I have very unreliable DSL service and trying to find a solution to allow me to at least stream from my phone and mirror to a television to keep from using Hotspot Data which my provider caps at 15GB hotspot data before they throttle.

I found an idea from another forum and so far appears to be working for me. I may see different in a week or so but for now this may just work.

What has worked for me so far is this. Setting up my Pixel 2 for Hotspot, creating the Wifi Network. I will call this DeviceA.

Hook up the Chromecast to the television ready to be configured.

Connect DeviceB to configure the Chromecast. In my example it is an old iPhone 6, which I downloaded the Google Home App on.

I used DeviceB to connect Chromecast to the Hotspot's network.

After the Chromecast is connected, I no longer needed DeviceB, I just turned it off or disconnect from the Hotspot.

The problem I kept running into was the requirement for the Chromecast to have Internet Access - I kept seeing the message to connect to the network. Ideally I would not want the Chromecast to do anything except mirror DeviceA directly without having a Wifi network at all. But since that does not appear to be possible at this point... I move on.

What I have found I can do is when I am ready to watch Netflix, Hulu, etc. I can turn on the Hotspot on DeviceA - which gets the Chromecast internet access, then turn on mirroring through the Google Home app on DeviceA - once they are connected and mirroring, I can launch Netflix, Hulu, MoviesAnywhere, Prime Video, etc. and use DeviceA data to be entertained and mirror to the television while using minimal activity on the Hotspot. Which I can live with, looks like it is using about .03GB where I was seeing a lot more being used when streaming from a Roku using the Hotspot.

There are likely better methods, but this may make my household happy. And make me happy by not killing all of my hotspot data in a week of streaming television. Which we can save for work, school, etc. and while not perfect but may allow us to drop the DSL service.