chromecast-control

Control a chromecast with python

We got chromecasts at ltc and I immediately wanted to use them to power our dashing dashboards. It is the cheapest route and being that it is just a chrome browser, makes the most sense.

This script will start, stop get info on a particular appid and a target chromecast (ip).

REST

Turns out that interacting with the chromecast is just rest.

You do REST operations on the appid url: http://CHROMECAST_IP:8008/apps/APPID

You stop it by DELETING to the appid URL. You also start by POSTING to it.

More interesting

There are other URLS that show up when you sniff traffic:

• http://CHROMECAST_IP:8008/ssdp/device-desc.xml
• http://CHROMECAST_IP:8008/apps/ChromeCast
• http://CHROMECAST_IP:8008/apps/

No idea what this does:

POST http://CHROMECAST_IP:8008/connection/ChromeCast

{
	"channel": 0,
    "senderId": {
	    "appName": "ChromeCast",
        "senderId": ""
	}
}

Youtube

Start:

POST http://CHROMECAST_IP:8008/apps/YouTube

pairingCode:  No idea
v:            awMIbA34MT8

Stop:

DELETE http://CHROMECAST_IP:8008/apps/YouTube

Please help

There is a lot of work to do (discovery, etc) that would make this useful. The chromecast is very powerful, but it is wrapped in an annoying interaction model (browser extension, etc).