Smart TVs are great for a lot of reasons. They enable you to watch YouTube and Netflix on your television with ease, and you can connect them to your smart home devices. Understandably though, they’re outside of most people’s price range.
For that reason, many people look towards streaming devices like Amazon Fire Sticks and Google Chromecasts. One issue Chromecast owners face is figuring out how to turn off Chromecast.
Powering off your electronics when you aren’t using them is important. It saves you money when paying the electrical bill, and it could prevent a fire from breaking out. So, why does turning off a Chromecast seem so difficult?
Why is Turning Off Chromecast a Problem?
Google doesn’t state an official reason for making Chromecasts so difficult to turn off. A safe assumption would be that they collect data and update the device’s firmware when it isn’t in use.
That’s fine, but what happens when you want to move the Chromecast and connect it to another television? This is just one of many situations where knowing how to turn off Chromecast can come in handy.
Perhaps you have friends coming over, and you don’t want them to be broadcasting things to your television. Turning off the Chromecast is the easiest solution, but if you don’t know how, it’s not easy.
Unplugging it is probably your preferred option if you’re in a rush. It’s not ideal since unplugging an electronic device suddenly can damage the hardware or, in this case, the firmware. However, this seems to be the only way to turn off Chromecast.
Are There Any Reasons to Leave Chromecast On?
Believe it or not, yes! There are a few reasons to keep your Chromecast on instead of learning to turn off Chromecast. The main reason is that Google regularly releases security and firmware updates for their devices.
These updates are important for the functionality of your Chromecast. If your device doesn’t receive the most recent updates, then it won’t be compatible with some apps, you may experience connection issues, and the worst-case scenario is that your Chromecast is hacked.
Leaving your Chromecast on gets you important updates as soon as Google releases them. By turning off the device, you miss out on these updates.
What Happens if I Leave My Chromecast Turned On?
Leaving your Chromecast on won’t damage it. If you have been using your Chromecast and turn your television off, there is a “standby time.”
After a certain amount of time, the device will go into standby mode. This heavily limits the amount of power that the device consumes.
Rather than powering off completely, standby allows the device to load much faster than if it were turned on after being turned off.
It also means the device can update its software without using it (rather than updating it when you want to start binging Netflix!).
This is great for anyone frustrated by waiting for the device to load. But again, if you’re paranoid about causing a fire by leaving the device on, you’ll want to look at how to turn off Chromecast.
Steps on How to Turn Off Chromecast
Back to the original question: how can I turn off my Chromecast device?
At the moment, the only way to turn off a Chromecast is by unplugging it. Reiterating what we said before may indirectly damage the device’s hardware or software. Furthermore, you’ll miss out on important updates.
To prevent any sort of damage, our recommendation is to only turn it off on occasion. This will ensure that your Chromecast can also install all of the most recent updates.
One particularly important thing to remember is that turning off your Chromecast during an update is incredibly dangerous.
While the firmware is installed on any sort of device (computers, tablets, smartphones, and streaming devices), it follows a set of installation instructions. Disrupting this process can result in the hardware breaking or even bricking.
How to Check if Your Chromecast is Updating
If you’re discovering how to turn off Chromecast but want to be safe, check if there’s an ongoing update.
Doing this is as simple as looking at the streaming device and checking what color it is. When there’s an update downloading or installing, the LED will flash orange. If you have the 1st generation Chromecast, the LED will flash red instead.
If your device is updating, the best course is to wait before turning it off. When the LED switches back to pure white, it’s safe for you to unplug it.
If I Turn Off Chromecast, How Can I Update?
You might worry that by turning off your Chromecast, you risk missing out on these crucial updates. This isn’t the case – your Chromecast won’t be able to update after you unplug it, but it will update when you plug it in again.
After you plug your Chromecast back into your TV and it powers on, it automatically scans the network for updates. The downside is that if you’ve unplugged it for a few weeks or months, there’s probably an update waiting on you.
If there is an update, you won’t be able to use your Chromecast until it downloads and installs the update.
Depending on your router’s download speed, this may take up to an hour, possibly longer if you have the Chromecast unplugged for months.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a way to postpone the update so that it installs later. This is another reason for leaving your Chromecast powered instead of turning it off.
Disabling Chromecast’s Remote Notifications
Now that you have your Chromecast turned off, you might have another question about it. How can you turn off the remote notifications?
This is something we hear from a lot of people. Remote notifications mean you can get notifications on your smartphone if connected to your Chromecast.
The downside of this feature is that you might get a lot of notifications in a short time, and other Android users in the device’s proximity might get them too. Additionally, unwanted users could take control of the streaming device.
To avoid this, here’s how to disable the remote notifications:
- Step #1 – Unlock your smartphone and launch the official Chromecast application.
- Step #2 – Once on the app, tap “Settings” and the “Devices” option.
- Step #3 – Find the Chromecast device that you want to disable notifications. Tap on “Menu” to proceed.
- Step #4 – For the setting “Let others control your caster media,” tap on the slider next to it, so the setting is disabled.
Rather than changing the setting, you could also just dismiss the notifications. But this means you have to dismiss every notification, which is slightly inconvenient. Note that this also disables notifications for all Android devices on the same network as your Chromecast.
To Conclude:
We’re not sure why Google won’t implement a simple feature to power off a Chromecast. Understandably, they prefer standby mode as it makes the device load faster and keeps it up to date.
That said, how to turn off the Chromecast solution that involves pulling out the power cord can affect the device? For the time being, that’s the only way to get the job done, and hopefully, it’s what you’ve been looking for.
Always remember to check if your Chromecast is updating before pulling the plug. Don’t be impatient because unplugging during an update greatly increases the risk of bricking it!
Besides, you may also want to know how to use Chromecast without the Internet.