Or you can pull up your laptop, PC, or a Chromecast enabled TV. And in a couple of seconds you have your photos up on the big screen, with you in the driver’s seat.
Streaming Photos from Android to PC via the Web
AirDroid does a lot of awesome things but apparently it doesn’t have photo viewing/gallery features. So I had to go looking something else. And I found an alternative, one that looks exactly like an AirDroid clone but with this one extra feature. To get started, make sure both the Android phone and your PC (or even your smart TV that has a web browser) are on the same Wi-Fi network. Now, download the Web PC Suite app for Android and launch it. Go to the PC/Smart TV and open www.webpcsuite.com. Hold your phone’s camera against the screen to authenticate using the QR code. That’s it, now the phone and PC are connected. Sidenote: If you have multiple apps and devices connecting with each other over Wi-Fi, Web PC Suite can give you a connection error. If that happens, go to Settings and change the web socket to something else. On the website, click the Gallery icon. This will bring up all the images you have on your device. Scroll till you find the images you want to showcase. Click on an image for a full screen preview. Use the left/right arrow keys to navigate. What’s important to note here is that all of this is very fast. Images load up quickly and switching between them is smooth as well. Don’t let the fact that it runs over a website get in the way of you trying it.
Using Chromecast
If your photos are backed up with Google+ (something you really should consider), you can go to the Photos app and cast them to Chromecast directly while connected to the internet. But if you want to cast photos from your local storage, we’ll need to download an app called PhotoCast. Of course for this to work your Chromecast will need to be set up and connected to the same Wi-Fi network. Launch the app and connect to the Chromecast using the Cast button. Then browse the app’s albums and tap the photo you want to cast to the screen. It will appear on the TV in a jiffy. You can change the layout from fullscreen mode to stacked or magazine style. There’s also an option to start a slideshow.
How Do You Use Your Chromecast?
Do you use Chromecast? What novel uses for this cheap little HDMI dongle have you come up with? Let us know in the comments below.
