Google rebranding the Cast app to Google Home, with new functions

The Google Cast app has gone through a long evolution for what it basically does: mirror audio and video content from the Google Chrome browser to your television. Now, the digital media player is bound for another change as Google looks to rebrand the Google Cast app to Google Home and add new functions to it.

Before it got the name Google Cast back in March, Google used to call the app Chromecast. The switch to Google Cast was meant to reflect the tool’s significant drift away from its Chrome-centered function to other purposes, including the ability to view other available Cast–compatible apps.

The rebranding of Google Cast to Google Home, therefore, doesn’t come as a huge surprise after the search giant’s big event yesterday, where it introduced a bevy of new software and hardware products. Google Home is one of those products, coming in the form of Google’s new voice-activated speaker. The $129 device will help users control all their connected gadgets under the Internet of Things ecosystem and stream content to a wide variety of devices at home.

The Mountain View company now aims to bring older Chromecast devices and the new Chromecast Ultra under one umbrella: Google Home. In fact, the Chromecast Preview firmware has removed all references to Chrome and has begun to adopt the brand Google Home.

It’s worth pointing out that Google is not exactly ditching the name Google Cast. It remains a relevant name for what the dongle is intended to do: sending content from a source device to a high-definition TV or WiFi speaker.