Miracast is now part of our digital days, but some may not really know what it is. We are talking about a standard for wireless connections between different devices and thus being able to pass streaming visual content to television screens or monitors.
We could almost say that through Miracast we can replace HDMI, although we also have another very interesting alternative with Chromecast, although it differs a lot, since Miracast is available on both televisions and mobile devices. Let's know a little more about this standard to mirror your living room screen from your mobile.
What is Miracast
Virtually Miracast is a wireless standard for mirroring from a smartphone, tablet or PC to a TV without the need for HDMI cables. Let's say that Miracast allows us to discover other devices to connect them together and thus make a "mirror" of what we have on our mobile screen, to give you a quick example of its most normal use.
One of the biggest advantages of mirroring with Miracast is that a closed Wi-Fi is created that does not depend on a connection to the Internet as it happens with Chromecast. This in itself is its greatest strength and for what in many cases it can come from pearls to be able to view any content from our mobile on another screen.
Regarding its video and audio broadcast quality, it is of high quality at 1080p and even up to 4K ultra HD. And there is no lack of sound to reach 5.1. That is, you will have a premium quality video and audio output to meet your needs for playing multimedia content over wireless networks.
A protocol that radiantly entered Android in 2013, but than in 2016, three years later, support was stopped for Google to bet on Google Cast, its alternative to Miracast. This does not mean that there are mobile brands that continue to use this protocol such as HTC, Xiaomi and many others.
What is it for and how does it work?
Unlike other alternatives that are based on wireless, such as Apple's AirPlay or Google's Chromecast, Miracast has been designed as a cross-platform standard. And to be clear, Miracast works as a "screen mirroring" protocol. This has its positives and negatives, but speaking of the second, if we use Miracast to mirror a TV series that we see from Netflix on our mobile, we should leave the device screen on all the time; which leads to higher battery consumption.
If we compare it to Chromecast, in this we can leave the mobile with the screen off while we are streaming one of the Netflix or Amazon TV movies. Although the great advantage of Miracast is that everything we see on the screen of your mobile will be on the same screen of our television, so for some purposes, the truth is that it works very well.
Miracast works in such a way that from our mobile device we can find it:
- We go to Settings> Connections> More connections and if our mobile supports this protocol, the Miracast function should appear.
Now it is important that the two devices, one from which we emit and the other that receives the emission, are under the same Wi-Fi connection to achieve the connection between the two.
To be able to send:
- Let's go to Settings> Display> Send screen
This way we would connect and send the content we want through Miracast. One important thing is that the name for the broadcast can be changed from Send Screen to multiple screen or cast screen. That is, depending on the manufacturer of the phone it may vary, although the function is the same.
From the same notification panel, just from the shortcuts, we can find the access to «Send screen» in order to facilitate the experience and we do not have to go to the settings. You can also arrange these buttons to quickly access this miracast function if you use it frequently.
The next would be to send the screen and wait for it to appear on the TV where we are going to connect. Since 2013, most brands already have this protocol, so it would not be difficult, as long as our mobile has it, to be able to broadcast to the screen. And we repeat what was before, you must have the screen on all the time for the content to be broadcast through miracast. If you turn it off, the broadcast will cease and you will have to reconnect.
Alternatives to Miracast: Chromecast
Without a doubt Chromecast is the best alternative to Miracast. A dongle that you can get between 30-40 euros, and that if you go to Wallapop you will find them for 20 euros. Chromecast stands out for being able to convert old screens that do not have smart options into a smart one.
Everything is done through the HDMI connection and that we will use to connect the Chromecast dongle. Connected, we will use the HDMI output on the screen to access your installation. When it is ready, from our mobile we can use an app like Google Home to configure and manage the content and settings of Chromecast, although its installation is not essential.
- Once ready, from our mobile we only have to go to YouTube, VLC or Netflix itself
- We reproduce any content.
- We will see in the upper right the icon of streaming content emission.
- We press it, and if we have two or more Chromecasts at home, we can select where to send the content.
- The content will begin broadcasting on our television.
Among its greatest advantages is the option to turn off the mobile screen so that it continues to play, and the options we have with some apps, such as Netflix, to use the shortcut in the notification panel to pause or continue playing.
Another of the highlights of Chromecast is that if we leave the channel with the HDMI connection, a changing wallpaper is reproduced every few minutes. This allows us to use our television as if it were a picture where high quality photographs are being reproduced with a clock to tell the time.
And of course, use VLC with Chromecast means being able to play local content on our TV through our mobile. A content that depending on the Chromecast we have, can be in 1080p in the normal version and 4K in the Ultra HD version of Chromecast; and that has a higher value logically.
Chromecast trick: use it without a Wi-Fi connection
While Miracast allows us not to have an Internet connection to play local content, with Chromecast we can also do it, although cheating him. In those cases where you are in a house where there is no WiFi, but if a TV with HDMI, we can do it this way:
- We create a shared connection with our mobile and important, the network must have the same name and password than the WiFi network with which we usually use Chromecast in our house.
- Chromecast will find the network created from our mobile and will connect to it; we cheat him as is.
- From our mobile now we can broadcast content that we have locally without using data to the TV screen.
Amazon Fire TV Stick
Amazon Fire TV Stick uses the same protocol as Chromecast. That is, we connect the dongle to the HDMI of the TV and that's it. The difference is that we can use a command to manage the content and do a few things like play, pause, rewind and fast forward. You also have access to a menu and even the voice button to dictate commands to Alexa, Amazon's virtual assistant.
Another difference is that we can move through the Amazon Fire TV menu in order to install apps and thus access other types of content. Let's say that Chromecast and Amazon Fire TV are very similar, but with their differences when it comes to managing and handling the content.
If you prefer to use your mobile more, we recommend Chromecast, apart from the fact that you have several more apps than Amazon's own. Although in this you can pull Plex to stream video from a PC. It even offers the option of use the Apple TV app and iTunes itself. If you are an Apple user, you already know where you have to go.
DLNA
Although it is increasingly in disuse, was born in 2003 and initially had the largest brands of televisions. It is one of the most widespread alternatives to Miracast and is still available to broadcast that content from your Android mobile.
DLNA needs both devices are DLNA Certified, and the safest we need apps like BubbleUPnP or Kodi. Another alternative to Miracast and Google Cast and that depending on our devices may be more convenient. We are left with Chromecast for its portability and for the expansion of Android around the world; apart from the price that is more than convenient.