Are you curious to knowing how to cast your android smart phone music files, Pictures and videos to your television screen using Xiaomi Mi BOX? Then this post is for you.
Usually, being able to cast your smart phone display to your television set is doable. However, for the most part, the television needs to be a smart TV. Cast feature is a norm on most smart TV sets released lately. While this is doable, it does depends on the smart phone being used.
If you use an iPhone, I am not sure that feature works. However, for most sophisticated android phones, it does work. Some newly android phone have the cast feature embedded as well.
But, what if you do not own a smart TV? What if your android smart phone does not have the cast feature on board? That’s another angle where a smart TV box comes to play. It definitely doesn’t necessarily have to be the Xiaomi Mi BOX android TV box. But, since I happen to have one and the only slightly sophisticated android box I currently use, this tutorial is based on it.
How To Cast Files From Phone To Television Using Xiaomi Mi Android TV Box
For the case of this tutorial, we will be assuming you do not have a smart Television. If you have one, just use the case feature on your phone. Both the television and the phone needs to be connected to the same WiFi network.
If however, you own a regular TV like an LED television and you own an android tv box, then we are on the same page. Also bear in mind that this tutorial is for those android phone without the cast feature. I will be updating this post after testing with a phone that has the cast feature inbuilt. But for now, we are using a regular phone.
Ready?
Let’s pen down all the requirements needed for this to work.
Requirements
To be sure you do not encounter problems along the line, these are the requirements needed for you to be able to cast music, pictures and videos from your phone to your television using the Xiaomi Mi Box android TV box.
- An Android phone.
- A WiFi network
- The Xiaomi MI TV box fully functional and connected to your TV set
- All Cast app. Download HERE!
- Or, All Screen App. Download HERE.
You can choose to download both apps on your android phone or choose to download just one. There are quite a handful of apps on the app store promising to allow you cast. But, I have only had success with those two. So for that reason, I am only recommending those two.
If subsequently, I discover another app that does better, I will update the post accordingly. Hence, perhaps you should subscribe to this blog’s updates for updates.
Step To Cast Phone Screen To Television Using Android TV BOX
Having mentioned to have had success with two apps, the guide here will be based on these apps. Meaning, I will be showing you how to achieve the cast feature using these apps. As earlier mentioned, if I discover subsequent apps, I will update the post accordingly.
So, let’s get started!
Using AllCast Application
First, make sure both the android TV box and Phone are both connected to the same WiFi Network.
Launch the All cast app on your phone. After searching, this will display your android tv box.
As you can see in the screenshot above, two devices are displayed. Actually, they are both the same device. One just seem to have google chrome cast and the other, a regular TV cast feature.
In my case, I choose the first option which is casting through chrome cast TV feature. The second option doesn’t seem to work. The Xiaomi Mi Box comes with google cast feature.
On the next screen, you will be presented with multimedia file options. These are; Gallery, Audio, Recent, Google+, Google Drive and file Browser.
Ask yourself, what exactly would you like to cast to your tv screen?
Pictures and videos? Choose gallery. MP3 songs? Choose Audio. From your google drive account? Choose Google drive.
In my case, I want to cast an audio file from my phone to my television. For that reason, I will choose Audio. Tap on the audio file and it should begin playing on your television screen.
Using the control buttons on your phone equally controls the volume of the file on the television set. Perhaps, you may want to put that in mind.
That works, right? Good! Let’s see how to use the second app.
Using All Screen App
This is solely for the sake of options. Clearly, the AllCast app works for its purpose. If however, you would rather try a different app, then all screen is the app that I have confirmed working asides all cast.
To use all screen app in casting your phone screen to your television set, follow these steps.
Again, the phone and the xiaomi mi android tv box needs to be connected to the same WiFi network. This is very important for casting to work.
Launch the All Screen app and tap on the cast to icon.
Depending on your tv box name, select the one with the Google Chrome logo. In my case, it’s MIBOX3.
Select the file you want to cast to your television and this should begin playing on your television screen. Again, the volume buttons on the phone also works in controlling the volume on your television set.
Wrapping UP
If you have tried both, you’d discover the casting does work. With this, you can be a bit distant and cast files from your phone to your television. Say you have a movie on your phone you want to watch on a bigger screen but do not want to go through the hustle of transferring to a memory card or flash, this is the quickest method. Same applies to audio files and pictures.
Based on usage, the noticeable difference between using All cast and All screen, is the shuffle feature for audio files. This seem to be missing on allcast but present on all screen app. Of course, at the end of the day, it boils down to which actually rocks your boat and for what purpose.
