Chromecast and other similar streaming devices are great and portable, but if you can’t get access to the hotel’s network it’s completely useless when you’re travelling. The How-To Geek explains a few ways to get your device working on hotel Wi-Fi.
The site shares a few approaches. We particularly liked their first solution: a good travel router.
Your Chromecast probably has trouble connecting to the hotel’s Wi-Fi because of the splash page where you sign in. Obviously, the Chromecast can’t get past that screen without a browser. But a good travel router can help you bypass it:
In an age when everyone is connecting wireless and the bulk of a hotel’s security efforts are focused on the wireless network, Ethernet jacks represent a sort of portal to Narnia where the data flows free and fast. In our experience the Ethernet jacks in hotel rooms are very rarely secured in any fashion and you can simply plug in a device and go… Although i’ts rare, if the hotel does have a login/authentication splash page for Ethernet users you can simply visit it with one of your devices (while connected to the wi-fi router). The router has a single IP/MAC address and doles out access (just like your home router) to all the attached devices. Once you accept the terms of agreement with one device through the unified access point the security system will let anything connected to the portable Wi-Fi router, including the Chromecast, pass through just fine.
Of course, your hotel room will need an ethernet jack for this to work, and it’s a good idea to have a device with a browser that can connect to your router as well. If you’re worried about how things will work, you can set up the whole system ahead of time so it’s simple as plugging the router in when you get there. For their other tricks on getting around hotel streaming blocks, check out the link below.
How Can I Use My Google Chromecast In a Hotel Room [The How-To Geek]
Comments
11 responses to “Get Around Hotel Wi-Fi Blocks And Use Your Chromecast When Travelling”
Wait… So you will take a wifi router so you can pay to use the hotel internet so you can pay to stream videos via your chromecast? To avoid pay per view?
Wouldn’t you just do what the other 50% of Australians do and download it onto your laptop and use that instead?
yeah hotel wifi is usually free
Yeah, At the backpackers or a quest motor inn the wifi is free. If you’re booked into a 4.5 star or 5 star hotel, pack your 4g card to avoid hefty fees.
yeah nah, 4 and 5 star hotel wifi is usually free, now if you are staying at a cheap hotel, then its probably not, im talking 1 star here.
Not in my experience. Most of the hotels I’ve stayed in in Melbourne and Brisbane, including the Mercure in Brisbane which itself is 4 star last time I checked (unless its risen or fallen), charge extra for wifi and a horrendous rate at that.
Wired is almost always free. Wifi sometimes costs money. So a wifi router makes perfect sense
Absolutely, though I was only talking about wifi 🙂 but yes, the wifi router makes perfect sense and a lot of them are so small you can carry them in a bag with minimal of fuss.
Hotel wifi even if free won’t work with chromecast because of the login screen.
You might not want to take a laptop. A chromecast is much smaller.
I used the Asus WL-330N3G 6-in-1 Wireless-N150 Mobile Router (http://www.asus.com/Networking/WL330N3G/) when I went to the US a couple of years ago. Very small and compact and did the job well. In one hotel the wired LAN was free while there was a charge for wireless. In another hotel there was a charge per device for wireless. The router allowed me to connect to the hotel’s wifi for a single fee and then share it with all of our wireless devices.
Hotel wifi is absolutely terrible. Good luck even getting a 240p or 480p video going all the way through. Better to just have a digital copy of whatever it is you want to watch, or take a 4G dongle with you if you really do appreciate your shows and quality of video and sound.