CheapCast, the Chromecast emulator, is now in the Play Store

While Google’s Chromecast isn’t exactly expensive, many users simply can’t buy it due to limited availability. Other people may already have Android-powered devices like the Ouya or HDMI sticks like Favi and may want to “upgrade” them with Chromecast functionality.

Put simply, CheapCast, on which we first reported last week, lets you emulate a Chromecast receiver on just about any Android device. That means you can get some of the functionality offered by the Chromecast dongle for free and without too much hassle, and perhaps breathe some new life in an old Android device you have laying around.

The developer of CheapCast Sebastian Mauer has made the first public beta of the app available as a free download on the Play Store. We gave it a try, and it mostly works as advertised, though there is a fair number of bugs and weird problems, as we’d expect from an early experimental project.

The app has one major limitation for now – it doesn’t work with the Chromecast Chrome extension, meaning you won’t be able to stream browser tabs.

Some users reported that they got the app to work on the Ouya Android-powered gaming console, and even on the ill fated (and pretty much useless these days) Google Nexus Q. Check out this video for more details.

Sebastian Mauer says he will continue to improve and tweak the application, and make its code open source so others can work on the project as well.