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I am a bit confused by my Android TV:

  • There is an app called Mirroring. When I start it, it asks me to use a thing called Miracast.

  • On my phone (Huawei) there is an app called MirrorShare. It was the only mirroring-related app, so I decided to try it.

  • After starting it, with my surprise, my TV got displayed as a compatible device. I connected to it and it seemed to work: my phone's screen (with A LOT of delay) got mirrored on my TV.

  • In the TV settings there is also an entry called "Google Cast". So why is it now Google Cast and not "Miracast" or whatever it's called?

  • I searched for Google Cast on Play Store and I found the official app by Google.

  • I installed it. Even this time, the TV got detected, but when I tried connecting, I noticed the delay of the screen was A LOT LESS, for example, Asphalt 8 was pretty playable.

  • I searched on the Internet for all these terms, and another word I saw everywhere was "Chromecast".

What is the difference between these technologies? Are some of these different ways to call the same thing? Wasn't Chromecast that little item you stick behind your non-smart TV to see Netflix or YouTube on it?

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Google Cast and Miracast are 2 different technologies and protocols.

Miracast primarily allows wireless screen mirroring, and support is usually built-in in the OS in modern Android devices and Windows 8.1+.

Google Cast additionally allows transferring external multimedia stream to the remote screen without decoding it on the mobile device, but support for this depends on the application.

Miracast is often branded with proprietary label, most probably, in your case MirrorShare is Miracast.

Chromecast may refer to either the Google Cast protocol or a dongle which allows to use Google Cast on the TV without built-in support.

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If you play a movie in your phone and use Miracast, the TV will get sound and image as if you plug in a HDMI cable on it, but your phone have to play the movie as well. But if you choose Chromecast, you can lock your phone but still having the movie played in the TV.

Miracast can work without Wi-Fi, but Chromecast can't.

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  • Miracast does not use the Ethernet network provided by WiFi, but it uses the 'WiFi' infrastructure using something called 'WiFi Direct'. Recent upgrades (2023) to Miracast now allow 'some' apps to 'cast' ('App Cast') to the TV without having to dedicate the phone screen to the same content. Netflix works this way on my phone.
    – Steerpike
    Commented Mar 3, 2023 at 18:24

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