Why Doesn’t Google TV (And Its Many Apps) Support Offline Downloads?
Ryan Haines / Android Authority
Offline downloads on a TV sound pretty much like a stupid request, don’t they? I know that. The biggest screen in our homes, the one we spend the most time in front of, is bound to be connected to the internet somehow. Whether we’re streaming directly on the TV or via a box connected to it, whether we’re using an online subscription or watching something from our local NAS collection, odds are we have a Wi-Fi connection of some sort to enjoy that content. So offline downloads don’t really make sense there.
Still, I find myself looking at Google’s TV platform and wishing it supported offline downloads — as a platform and as individual apps. Why? One word: Portability.
Would you like to see support for offline downloads on Google TV and its apps?
3 votes
Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
Many of us know Google TVs as big, heavy, stationary units that live in our homes. No one is lugging that around. But over the last few years, I’ve seen and used several portable Google TV units. Small Google TV projectors that I can throw in a backpack for a weekend away, a small Chromecast with Google TV dongle I can take on a long trip to plug into the hotel’s or Airbnb’s TV, or even tiny smart glasses that run on Google TV and give me a huge TV in front of my eyes on any flight or train ride — there’s no shortage of excellent, compact, light, and travel-friendly Google TV units around.
There are many excellent portable Google TV units, perfect for flights, train rides, trips, and weekend getaways. But they need a constant connection.
The problem? They need a 24/7 connection to be usable (unless you make the effort to “find” some MP4 content and use VLC Player or MX Player to watch it). However, by definition, travel is when I do not have a good connection. I might be offline for hours during a flight, I might have a spotty connection on a multi-hour train ride, and I might be in a hotel with no free Wi-Fi.
Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
It’s in these circumstances that I just look at my Android phones and tablets and sigh in frustration. Plex, Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, PocketCasts, Spotify, etc. — I can easily download content for offline viewing from all of these apps and more on my phones and tablets. As a matter of fact, it’s one of the most basic and essential features any streaming app has on mobile devices.
The same apps that let me download offline content on my phone and tablet don’t let me do this on my projector or smart glasses.
However, on Google TV projectors, dongles, and smart glasses, these same apps don’t allow any offline downloads. I either stream my content from a live connection, or I’m stuck with a useless paperweight. It’s silly. It’s frustrating. It’s an arbitrary limitation.
Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
I would just like to grab some offline YouTube videos to watch on my glasses during a train ride. Or download a movie to catch on my XGIMI projector during a weekend getaway. I want to be able to take my Chromecast dongle back home to Lebanon, plug it into my TV, and watch some TV series even if I no longer have an active internet subscription there. Why do I have to go the piracy route to watch content on one of the most convenient big screens that I can carry with me?
And yes, I realize that there’s a storage problem with many Google TV devices. Several of them, including Google’s own Chromecast, have been alarmingly underpowered from the get-go, with a measly 8GB or 16GB of onboard storage — most of which is taken by the system and the few apps you install on them. However, several of these Google TV units, specifically the projectors and smart glasses, come with more storage out of the box (32GB at least) and offer microSD slots or USB slots to plug in external storage. Just let us use these, please, Google? An official API for Google TV that all streaming apps could easily use would be ace.
