One of the drawbacks to Chromecast is that it relies on a steady Wi-Fi connection, something that not everyone has. The good news is that according to people who’ve received the Nexus Player in the US today, is that the unit supports wired Ethernet connections via a USB OTG adapter.
The Nexus Player, as well as being able to play videos, games and load Android apps, also acts as a Chromecast receiver, allowing you to cast from Android Devices to the Player. On reddit, user xBIGREDDx has shown off his newly received Nexus Player running Android TV, which is connected to a wired network using a microUSB OTG cable to USB Ethernet adapter. Once he connected the cabling, he was able to enter the settings and the ‘Wired’ connection was present.
As well as connecting to a USB Ethernet adapter through USB-OTG, he also reported that he could browse a USB thumb-drive using an Android app called OTG Disk Explorer Lite. In theory, once the Nexus Player is rooted – and it will be, the ADT-1 has been rooted, and hey, it’s a Nexus device – then it will be a simple matter to install StickMount.
The wired ethernet option is of course present on the Android TV Developer unit handed out to developers after Android TV was announced at Google I/O. The omission of this spec was a small step backwards in our opinion, but it’s pleasing to see it’s still possible to connect to a wired ethernet network, even with a home-brew setup.
Now, we just need to be able to order the Nexus Player and we can start enjoying these benefits.
