Personalize Google Chromecast Backdrop With Your Own Photos - YouTube

In today's video i'm going to show you how to

personalize the biggest screen in your house.

Let's get started!

Hey everybody!

Welcome to Tech With Brett where I help tech work for you.

Today we're going to be customizing the Google Chromecast device.

This will work if you have a Chromecast or a Chromecast Ultra.

Now before we end this video make sure you leave a comment on what Chromecast feature

you want to see next.

First let's head into the Google Home app using your Android or your iOS device, either an

iPhone or an iPad.

The Chromecast Backdrop is basically the screensaver of your Chromecast device.

This is what will display on your TV when you are not casting something.

There are featured photos that will show up and they will rotate through.

You can also customize what photos are showing up and I will show you how to do that today.

When looking at the Chromecast Backdrop there are a few different items that are on the screen.

Starting over here in the bottom left hand corner you will see the Chromecast device name.

If you would like to turn on the pin you can do that in the Guest Mode settings.

If you click the link at the top right I will show you how to do that.

Then over here on the right hand side of the screen you will see that it is displaying

the weather, the time, as well as where the photo came from so you can know where that

photo is or what album it is coming from on your personalized backdrop.

So our next is to go into the Google Home application.

When you set this up make sure that you are signed into the same WiFi network as the Chromecast

and your mobile device.

Once we are in here we do need to sign into our Google account, so if you click the top

left hand menu make sure you sign into your Gmail account there.

Then we need to go into the devices tab, and you do that by going into the top right hand

corner here and click on the device.

Then it is going to show you your devices here.

And today we are going to be working with the Chromecast Ultra.

If you haven't done this you do need to click enable voice and more.

Click "Yes I'm In" and that will allow you to personalize your backdrop.

If you have already done so and that option is not there you can either click Edit Backdrop

here or click the settings and then Backdrop Settings and now you have the backdrop here.

So there are a bunch of different services that you can connect to.

Now if you don't adjust your backdrop settings you will see the featured photos on the Chromecast

and those are pulled and selected and they always look great but this allows you to go

a little further and put exactly what you want to on your Backdrop.

So the first option we have here is Google Photos.

So if I go into Google Photos I will need to turn it on here at the top.

If you haven't done so you'll sign into your Gmail account and it will pull from the Google

Photos app.

To use Google Photos you will need to have used the app and already backed up your photos.

And this will use the most recent albums that you have.

If you don't see an album here you will need to go in and create a new album on the Google

Photos app.

So here I can go down and let's say I want to choose family photos right here, I can

select each album that I want up there on the screen.

So then I can click back and you'll already see on my Backdrop that those photos have

started loading.

A here is the picture of the family.

Then if I want to add a different service I can go in and here I can add Facebook.

I just need to do the same thing.

Open it up, click connect and add my account.

I can add Flickr photos.

Here I can also add Play Newsstand.

With this, it allows me to see news articles on the TV.

Now if you're asking why would I want to do that, you can easily see an article and it

will tell you a little blip about it in the bottom right hand corner of your screen, and

then you can go into the app and learn more.

So let us say I want to turn this on, so then you can also use the Google Newsstand app

to customize that a bit more.

Here on the backdrop we see one of the pictures.

Now if I want to learn more about that picture I can just go back and right here in the devices

tab on the Google Home app it will tell me about it.

If I click on that, it will actually take me right to the link of that article so I

can read more.

No let's go back, I am going to edit Backdrop settings again.

Here I have Curated News so then it will automatically pull up news articles it wants.

If I use the Newsstand I can customize what different categories I want to see on the TV.

Here we have art, if I open up the art category I can choose Google Cultural Institute, the Google

Open Gallery and then I can choose Street Art.

Up here at the top I have full turn on or turn off.

And then down here I can turn off just individual items.

Here we have feature photos, those are the ones that are automatically going to play through.

I can customize that a bit more or completely turn them off so only my personalized photos

would show.

Then I have Earth and space, I can turn those on and off.

Then down here I have a few custom options that I can choose to change on the Backdrop.

So right here this has custom speed.

Right now the photos are playing fast, you will see more photos more often.

I want to see the photos stay on there a bit longer you can select the slow option or normal speed.

Up here at the top you have turn on or off.

Then here we have weather so in the bottom right hand corner next to the time you will

see the weather on there so you can either turn it completely off and it will no longer

show on the screen or you can change it Celsius instead of Fahrenheit.

Right here is where you remove your Backdrop preferences.

If you do that and you say remove it can't be restored, you would need to go and reset

up your Backdrop again.

If you would like to see a picture that passed and you want to learn more information

about where that photo came from you can go back into the Google Home app, go into the

devices tab and then right here you have the history button.

If you select that it will show you the last few photos that were on the TV.

And then here you can see where it came from.

Let's say I want to see that photo, I can select album and it will go to that place and

if I want to delete it I can do that or it will just show me that picture or article

that I saw.

If you would like to remove the Backdrop preferences for a device that you are no longer using,

you can go into the devices tab on the Google Home app, scroll down to the bottom, and then

you can click on the device and you can disassociate that device from your account and here you

would select Unlink.

Thank you so much for joining me today to learn all about the Backdrop on your Google

Chromecast device.

If you have any further questions I'd love for you to leave a comment below so that I

can help you out.

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Thank you guys so much for watching, we'll see you on the next one!