IMO no they are not. I bought one at launch and other than streaming Netflix to it with my phone and casting my PC screen onto the TV (laggily and slowly) I couldn't really find that many uses for it. It was ditched when we got an Amazon stick, that did everything it could and didn't need my phone or my wife's Ipad in order to do it. I don't know what else they can do but to me that seemed about it. There wasn't really anything else that supported it either at that time, though that may have changed. I then got fed up of the laggy slow Fire stick and replaced it with the Fire box.
the home content streaming is awful. the apps work ok but if you want to stream a film say from a media server to a chromcast anabled TV its looks crap.
I guess if you have a dumb TV and nothing else (and a good phone or tablet) it could be worth it. Thing is, every box we have in our house does everything it can do and more and doesn't need a phone/tablet. Problem is phones and tablets need charging all of the time.
Sure, if I had a smart TV (/when I get one) the chromecast will likely be retired, but as a cheap way of enabling that content, it's much better than running an HDMI cable. It doesn't much matter what phone/tablet you have, it acts as an initiator/controller between the chromecast and the source, but doesn't actually do anything with the media itself, unless you're casting your phone's screen directly.
Works great on dumb TV when having a YouTube night passing the tablet around. Personally I've found FireStick a tad better for streaming content but both work great on Plex
I find mine great, used mostly for Netflix, you tube, or plex. Works fine for the most part Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
basically, my dad has a non smart Toshiba TV. connected to it is a Sony blu-ray player, and also a Humax Freesat HDR-1000S box. both boxes take up the available 2 HDMI sockets on the TV. was thinking the chromecast (only likely used by me) could do what the 2 boxes are failing to do with on demand services. channel 5 (UK) is the old user interface, and not the new my5 they have. still works though. all4 doesnt work, as I am guessing channel 4 encodes programs differently and the Humax doesn't have the correct codec installed with the older version of all4, so all you get is a scrambled up non working view. (adverts play before the programmes that dont work) I could also put the chromecast into my computer monitor, and take audio from the 3.5mm jack to my DJ setup in my room. I could just obviously open the browser on my computer though. needs to be compact, so I can plug it in downstairs, and remove it when finished viewing for that session. my dad may use it if photos from his computer or tablet (which loads them from his desktop PC) although I'd have to set it up for him.
Totally worth it. Problem with smart sticks is that it requires concept of TV inputs. Problem with smart TV is that the hardware is dated before it comes out and it is very clunky (newest Android TV included, compared to NVidia Shield TV) I've got my parents the original one when it came out, they are very happy with it. I have recently (a few months before they drop to £20 ) bought the version 2 for my kitchen TV, and also happy with it. Just turn on the TV as usual and start casting, TV auto switches input and all controls are easy to understand for the non-techy wifey. She uses NVidia Shield TV the same way: as a Chromecast device. For local contents, you really need a server-client setup. I use my Shield TV as Plex server and cast to Chromecast via phone as controller.
Total piece of ****. Mine can't be seen by the TVs most of the time, piss poor reliablity in streaming performance 2 feet from the WiFi source and and Google removed the ability to attach it to a phone hotspot so I can't use it on holiday. Totally sick I wasted the money.
I use mine in conjunction with a Synology NAS for local content and it has been great. A lot better than the now retired PS3 I previously used for this purpose. Admittedly the Synology video app comes with chromecast support built in so in my case it makes the whole process very smooth. Other setups might not be quiet so straight forward.