Teardown confirms improved heat dissipation system in new Chromecasts
iFixit's teardown of the 2015 Chromecast (above) and the new Chromecast Audio (below). Hello, thermal paste! (credit: iFixit) — Exactly how much stuff can Google cram into the tiny hockey puck that is this year's line of Chromecast dongles?
Context & Ripple Effects
Two weeks after leaked documents previewed the second-generation Chromecast's improved Wi-Fi and "Fast Play" features, iFixit has cracked open both the new puck and its sibling Chromecast Audio to show how Google fits that capability into the same hockey-puck footprint — with thermal paste doing the heat-management work. The teardown matters because it establishes the internal template for Google's living-room hardware: a year later, iFixit found the same approach in a Google Home teardown, with standard connectors, screws, and modular components.
First-order effects
- Buyers get confirmed headroom in a sealed $35 device: thermal paste plus the documented Wi-Fi upgrades mean Google prioritized sustained performance over easy repairability in the 2015 Chromecast and Chromecast Audio.
Second-order effects
- Google's TV and speaker partners, already moving toward "Chromecast built-in" branding, now have a reference internal design they can absorb into their own sets — shifting the value from selling dongles to licensing the cast experience into TVs and speakers.
Third-order effects
- With the 2018 refresh still priced at $35 and judged not worth upgrading from this generation, the dongle hardens into a commodity; differentiation migrates upstream to the casting platform and branding rather than the hardware itself.
The trend: Streaming-dongle hardware is commoditizing around a fixed price point, with Google competing on platform integration and partner licensing rather than annual spec bumps.