This is a something I wanted to do for a long time now, which is turning your Raspberry Pi into a Chromecast alternative. Chromecast is a popular audio and video streaming device that connects directly into your TV’s HDMI port and sending your video or audio to the device is as simple as pressing a cast button .

In this tutorial I will show you how to use raspberry pi as chromecast alternative. It is also worth mentioning that this is not a direct clone to chromecast and that there are limitations. This method does not support the cast button  but will stream youtube videos as well as local audio and video files.

Equipment List

Raspberry Pi 3 ► Amazon | Ebay

Software List

Raspbian Pixel ► https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/

HaarigerHarald omxiv github ► https://github.com/HaarigerHarald/omxiv

Etcher  ► https://etcher.io/

How to use Raspberry Pi as Chromecast

Step 1: Install Raspbian Pixel

First you will need to download Raspbian Pixel, this method does work with other newer OS too such as OSMC and retropie.

download pixel

Now we will need a piece of software called etcher to write the image onto our SD card and USB Storage device.

etcher

Step 2: Check for updates

It is always a good idea to check for updates even if it is a freshly installed OS.

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade

Step 3: Enable SSH

You can enable SSH by navigating to Preferences > Raspberry Pi Configurations and click Interfaces then select SSH

Step 4: Prerequisites

We are now going to need to grab some software required by the omxiv so it can be compiled.

$ sudo apt-get install libjpeg8-dev libpng12-dev

Step 5: Downloading and compiling the OMXIV for casting

At this point we will need to open up the terminal and type these commands in to download and compile the software.

$ git clone https://github.com/HaarigerHarald/omxiv
$ cd omxiv
$ make ilclient
$ make -j4
$ sudo make install

once everything is compiled you need to retrieve your IP address of your PI

$ ifconfig

Step 6: Download Raspicast on Android

Navigate over to your play store on android and search for “raspicast”

 

Step 7: Casting to Raspberry Pi

Once everything is downloaded Open the software for the first time and you will be asked for an IP address. At this point you now insert the IP address you got earlier along with the Username and password of your raspberry pi.

Now you can open your youtube app and select a video to cast. Then but clicking the share icon look for the “raspicast”.

Finished!

At this point you should be able to see your video cast on the raspberry pi.

 

This guide was also mention in the video:

How to watch Netflix on Raspberry Pi