Multi-Room Audio on Chromecast devices offer no Video

I got excited when I learned that Chromecast devices (Generation 2 and above of video) will offer multi-room audio support. I already owned Chromecast Audio devices for a few years now, and enabled multi-room audio on those already. However, I have a Gen.  2 Chromecast on my patio which I wanted to pair with the Chromecast Audio device that connects to a receiver that feeds audio output to speakers already in that area. I thought it was going to be a fantastic option to stream from YouTube Music into My TV that is then simulcasted to my Chromecast Audio.

I tried yesterday, and found out that there is no video streaming available on my Gen. 2 Chromecast. Just Audio. Bummer!

So, at least for now, Multi-Room Audio will be for just that, just audio. Would have been great to see Video also streamed in simultaneous with Chromecast Audio.

Having Spotify playing through two devices simultaneously with one premium account [mobile]

I was a little disappointed at first when I learned that I could not have more than 1 mobile device playing songs via Spotify, just the way I can do with Netflix. There are instances where my son wants to listen at home while I want to do the same at work. He is too young to have his own account and it is not worth paying another $10/month for just having him play whenever he wants to, in my opinion.

Luckily, there is a way to work it around. Offline playlists. But you need to follow additional steps:

  1. Enable the playlists of your choice for offline sync. Wait until they are all synched up (I recommend it as an overnight task).
  2. Once all synced up, fire up Spotify.
  3. Go to preferences, select “Offline mode”
  4. Play your favorite music.
  5. The other device can now stream from the cloud without disrupting your session.

I have not tried it with 3 or 4 devices, but the process should be similar. Spotify Premium supports up to 3 devices in offline mode (and the PC or laptop being the fourth in “Online” mode).