Customer Ratings & Reviews

Cannot run any surround sound through, and even when you turn surround sound off, it glitches out and cuts audio so much a movie or show is not even watchable.

Audio cutting out on surround sound and it’s been an issue since day 1 and google hasn’t fix. They’ve released a patch update 2 days ago which I’ve installed but did not fix the issue.

I was very excited to replace my aging NVidia Shield Pro with this new device. However, after hours of testing, wiring, rewiring, resetting, etc. I came to the conclusion that it doesn't want to work with certain surround sound formats. E.g. I would play a movie on the Fandango at Home app on my Shield with full Dolby Digital, turn everything off, unplug it and connect the Google TV Streamer to the same HDMI cable, turn everything on and when I start the same movie in the same app I get PCM on my AV receiver. I finally went online and found multiple posts, both on the Google support site and Reddit forums where people came to the same conclusion. Even the specs comparison on Google show the previous Chromecast device has "Dolby-encoded audio (HDMI passthrough)" but the streamer has "Dolby Atmos" which basically means it does not have HDMI passthrough. I am returning this ... can't go back to watching Interstellar and Dune in stereo!

As with any new device, there are a few problems with the Goggle Streamer. It likes to lock up on start up and had lost wi-fi connection twice. I purchased this item two weeks ago and I am ready for a upgrade already. lol I would not recommend this item to someone who is not comfortable with rebooting and wi-fi connection issues. I love the menu and other items on the streamer. I would have thought Goggle would have done a better job before dumping it on the market for us to fix.

Besides the software and google home app being a nightmare to use, the remote control buttons get stuck when pressing them. Very cheap feeling expiernce.

Google's latest streaming device, the Google TV Streamer (4K), offers a significant upgrade for $99. It boasts a sleek, compact design and a noticeable performance boost over its predecessor, thanks to increased memory and storage. It delivers a smooth user experience with an intuitive interface, a redesigned remote, and support for 4K HDR, Dolby Vision, and Dolby Atmos. Ethernet connectivity ensures reliable streaming, and its deep integration with Google Home, including Matter and Thread support, makes it a powerful smart home hub. The Google TV Streamer (4K) is a compelling choice for those seeking a premium streaming experience with enhanced performance and smart home capabilities. The design itself is sleek and will fit most every home or room design. The remote is not overly complex, and also allows you to setup a favorites button for an app you use the most (if you so choose). Overall, I will be making this my everyday streaming device due to its performance and overall easy of use. Love this thing!

Wouldn't recommend to friends in it's current state. I really wanted to love this and swap out my Nvidia Shield but the voice sync issue after only a few minutes to hr of watching anything is very noticable and off-putting. I hope they fix this and I will re purchase.

The performance is a welcome improvement, but there is terrible audio lag that cant be resolved. The audio sync issue seems to grow over time, and gets worse the longer the device is powered on. Google is not being very responsive to reports of the issue, so i'm leaving a one star review to try and dissuade others from buying it until the problems are resolved, if they are ever resolved.

Does not support audio pass through and browsing speed is less than fast, really can’t replace nvidia shield

The new Google TV Streamer Turns any TV into a smart TV. This thing is pretty great. It’s easy to set up, easy to use, and so far, hasn’t so much as had a hiccup. I have an older TV in one area of my home that isn’t a smart TV…with this unit, it acts like one. First off, the design is great. Rather than being a dongle on the back of a TV, it’s a simple sleek oval shaped puck that sits discreetly on any entertainment center or desk. There is no annoying marketing plastered all of it. A single color with a smooth touch feel. The remote is small enough to feel modern without being so small that you think you’ll lose it. If you do lose it, never fear, there is a button on the puck that you can push to locate it. The remote will make noise until you find it. Connections are simple. You can connect a hard line network cable directly to your router, or connect via wireless if you don’t do the cable thing. The connection to your TV is a simple HDMI cable. The unit comes with the power cord and power brick. It’s long enough to be useful, so you should be good. Setup was super easy. When you turn the unit on, it will guide you through setup using the Google Home app on your smartphone. You can do it all manually, but it’s very simple if you use the app. It comes preloaded with major streaming apps. The best part about it being Google TV, is that you can access the app store and download any missing apps. Since it is connected to the app store, your apps stay up to date and you don’t have to worry about them becoming obsolete as quickly. You also get all kinds of live streaming TV channels if you like to watch old re-runs and such. You aren’t getting your major network and cable stations, but it’s till fun to watch the older stuff from time to time. I use Chrome as my primary web browser and password vault. For me, setting up the apps super easy. In some cases, it simply asked me if I wanted to use my credentials saved in Chrome…done. For others is was just a barcode that I could scan on my smartphone…done. Nothing was difficult. You can, of course, use the remote to type in your username and password in each app if you are “old school”, as if any of this is really old… Point is, it’s very simple to set up and operate. During the setup process, the remote can be configured to control your TV and Audio System. I followed the on screen instructions and was able to get my TV and Sound Bar connected to the Google remote in a matter of seconds. It’s not a full featured remote, so you can’t switch inputs or access settings menus on your other devices, but for power on/off and volume control it works great. The remote include a mic, so you can set up voice search. At one point, it will ask you if you want to allow Google to search across your apps when you ask it to find something. This is a fantastic feature. I’m always forgetting what app has the show I want. Now I can simply ask it to find “show xyz”, and it will find it across all of the apps I have loaded. Now more looking all over for a show. Finally, the portability aspect is a huge plus for me. When I travel, I can throw this in my bag and have all of my preferred streaming services available anywhere I can get an internet connection and an HDMI input. It’s fantastic for a hotel room, air b&b, etc. Just carry all the cable and remote and you are set. I have a little dop kit bag that I throw it all in to keep it organized.

Google TV may not be the most popular streaming platform out there, but it's been my favorite for a while. It's got a very nice interface, a broad selection of apps for streaming services and games alike, and (naturally) a search feature that's second to none. The one big downside with them in my experience has been that the hardware isn't great. Most of the options available are either subpar budget devices or somewhat underwhelming in their feature set, so when I saw that Google was releasing a new streamer meant to provide a more premium experience I was very interested. Unfortunately after spending about a week with it I've come to a surprising realization: Google's aced the hardware part but hasn't quite gotten the software up to the same quality. The issues began when I started setup. Usually adding a Google device to my established home is a mostly automated process, with my cell phone serving as the primary interface. In this case, however, the automatic setup failed as soon as I got the box added to my WiFi because it couldn't detect the phone on the same network. My best theory after several failed attempts is that this is because I run a combined setup with both 5ghz and 2.4ghz bands accessible via the same SSID - hardly an unusual practice these days and a somewhat surprising weakness if I'm correct. I was eventually able to get things up and running again going through the manual setup though, which is where I ran into my second issue: the streamer failed to accurately identify the codecs supported by my soundbar. To be clear, the soundbar it was attached to is a brand name unit that's been very reliable and has never had any issues with this before - it just seemed that for some reason the Google box couldn't talk to it. So once again, I had to resort to manual adjustments to get it up and running. I won't lie, I was starting to worry I might have gotten a lemon by this point. But fortunately things went a lot better from there. Once you get through the setup the streamer is very easy to use and has some nice improvements to the old Google TV UI. Almost everything can be controlled through the built in assistant - which you'll definitely want to learn to use if you want to employ some features like sleep timers - with the remote being quite adept at the rest. And the performance is top notch. 4K content looks and sounds great, and there's effectively no startup time to deal with. Based on the fact that the box has already received one software update since I've had it that seemed to fix the audio issues I ran into, I do feel confident that eventually Google will be able to address the issues with the software and turn this into one of the best streaming appliances on the market. But since I don't know what kind of timeline they might be looking at for that... I do still have to take one star off. As it stands now this is an easy recommendation for early adopters and tech savvy individuals, but may not be great for less tech inclined individuals who would benefit most from Google's usually seamless guided setup experience. Once they get those kinks ironed out though, I really do think this would be an excellent addition to anyone's home theater setup.

The Google TV Streamer is the successor to the Chromecast with Google TV. The one I have came in the color Google calls Porcelain. Its more of a off white or very light cream color. The remote is same. The remote feels good in hand. Nice layout and buttons feel solid with a satisfying click when pressing. No hdmi cable included so make sure you have another one laying around. Power is a regular usb to usb-c with a small power brick. At the time of writing this it comes out of the box with latest version Android 14. Has access to every streaming app you can think of. Has total of 32gb of internal storage with 26gb usable for apps. Plenty of space for a streaming device. Its snappy. Moving around the menus and loading/exiting apps is smooth. I didn't notice any lag like some of the streaming stick devices have. If you have ever used Android TV or Google TV then you will be right at home. If not its pretty easy to get use to. I personally prefer Google TV over other TV OS platforms such as Fire TV, Roku, Tizen, etc. Supports 4k video at 60fps along with every HDR format. Also a handful of audio formats including Dolby Atmos. And for bluetooth it supports version 5.1. It supports wifi 4 and 5 but not 6, 6e, or 7. I can see it not supporting the 6Ghz bands but in 2024 it should at least have regular wifi 6 support. I find this a very odd choice. Maybe its a limitation of the processor its using? It does have a gigabit ethernet port though which is a nice addition. Although I prefer to use the built in wifi. The wifi has been solid. I've had no issues with it dropping or buffering on my wifi 5. The Google home integration is a great little add-on I haven't seen elsewhere. There is a home preview menu option in settings which allows me to use some of my devices in my Google home including viewing my nest doorbell, nest cameras, thermostat, and lights. You can also get popup notifications on display if someone rings the doorbell. I am not able to do this on my TVs internal Google TV install so this is a welcome feature you get by using this device. You can also ask the built in Google assistant to view your nest cameras. Did I mention this has Google Assistant and a mic built into the remote. Some reasons someone would want this: Turn your non-smart TV into a smart TV Make your older smart TV faster Move from other streaming platform to Google TV platform Want the latest and best Google TV Want Google Home integration on your TV They could have added a better processor and latest wifi standards but then it would have cost more. So this is a nice middle ground on specs and price. I'm thinking this falls more in line with a mid to mid-high tier streaming device. Better than all those steaming sticks out there. Overall I really like it. This is a great choice for anyone who wants Google TV or just flat out needs a solid streaming device. Also if you have nest doorbell or cameras this is a great addition to that ecosystem as well.

Advertised HD audio but google is going to remove that feature.

I upgraded at least I thought I upgraded from a Chromecast. This thing is crap. It never opens apps. It has trouble opening my library. It is constantly buffering. I hate this thing.

no help with an order placed 3 weeks ago. it has not been delierved and they wont do anything. I am on my own

This appears to be a beta product still. I was getting run-time error messages when trying to play Dolby Atmos tracks in the Tidal app so I couldn't listen to them even in stereo. Apple TV streams Tidal Atmos tracks like a charm.

Bought to Chromecast with. Pitiful! OK to stream with but that's not why I bought it.

This is one of the most non user friendly devices one could possibly use

I have two 4K TVs with GoogleTV system built in, and a bedroom tv that just has a proprietary "Smart TV" system. This Streamer turns that TV into a GoogleTV system that is the same as my other TVs. It does a good job of searching my available streaming services and picking out content. Remote is just as good as my "old" Chromecast 4K. Really my only issue with it is the size. The streamer "Box" is fairly big. Not as big as an AppleTV, but it's still a decent sized unit and no easy way to mount to the tv that I can find. Had to get a floating shelf to sit under the tv. Doesn't defeat the purpose, but it's just more clutter on an otherwise streamlined wall. Takes about 6 minutes to set up if you have a houseful of Google devices already. Picture quality is topnotch, and ease of use is spectacular. Loads and streams movies and youtube quickly without a ton of buffering or loading. Just a really welcomed addition to the family of Google Home products. Only one suggestion for Google if they make a 2.0 version of the product... since the base "box" is so big and unmountable, make it magnetic so the remote can be stored on the base, and use a rechargeable battery in the remote. You advertise about being pro-environment but then make it use regular AAA batteries... just a thought.

Having this since 25th September, it was smooth at first, but as usual with android, slows down after few days. It already feels old and laggy. Get Apple TV 4k it’s miles better. So sad I can no longer return this.