Posted By Paul Kafasis on March 10th, 2018

Today, we’re pleased to be shipping a public preview of Airfoil for Windows version 5.5. This long-awaited update makes it possible to stream any audio from Windows to the Google Chromecast as well as other Google Cast devices, like the Google Home third party Cast-enabled players! After many, many months of work¹, we’re very glad to be able to provide Chromecast support in this free update for all Airfoil 5 users.

Apple HomePod Support Too

This update also includes full compatibility with Apple’s new HomePod hardware. With the newest releases of Airfoil for Windows and Airfoil for Mac, it’s easy to stream any audio from your computer to the HomePod, via AirPlay. Just open up the Airfoil for Windows 5.5 Public Preview or Airfoil for Mac 5.7, and start rocking with your new HomePod!

Why A Public Preview?

This update is working well, but we still have some kinks to work out before we’ll be fully satisfied. Folks have been waiting for this for quite some time, so rather than wait until everything is perfect, we want to offer the functionality immediately. This update has been reviewed both internally and by a large number of outside testers, and we’re confident it will work as expected for the vast majority of our users.

If you’re eager to stream audio to Chromecasts or other Google Cast devices, we encourage you to download this preview right from the Airfoil for Windows page.

Known Issues

There are several issues we’re still working on, which will impact a subset of users. The following items need not be reported:

• Lack of sync between Chromecasts – When streaming to multiple Chromecasts, audio is not kept in sync between the devices.

• Lack of sync between a Chromecast and other devices – When streaming to a Chromecast and an AirPlay or Bluetooth device, audio is not kept in sync between the devices.

• Sub-optimal metadata updating – When transmitting audio from supported sources, Airfoil passes along album artwork and track metadata to devices like the Apple TV, as well as our own Airfoil Satellite. At present, this data does not always update as expected.

We’re working on these issues, so there’s no need to report them. Do let us know of other issues you come across though.

More to Come

We plan to follow this Public Preview release with additional updates to improve compatibility and functionality. For now, we encourage you to give the Airfoil for Windows 5.5 Public Preview a try, then let us know how it works for you.

Footnotes:

1. We originally hoped to ship this in early 2017, an estimate which proved overly optimistic. Previous posts have detailed some of the delays we hit, which included an urgent and time-consuming fix for Apple TV support, as well as staffing changes. We’re definitely not happy with how long it’s taken us to get here, but we are glad to finally be providing this functionality. ↩︎