Chromecast has met with a huge success – And why not, this $35 device has done wonders to the way we consume content on big screen. However, even after a year since Chromecast launch, it is still not officially available to Indian audience (though available Amazon, eBay and others unofficially)
Now, Bangalore-based startup MangoMan Consumer Electronics has come up with a desi alternative to Chromecast that is tailor made for Indian audience. Called TEEWE, the device is very similar to Chromecast and has additional features that are suited for Indian audience.
Teewe is currently listed exclusively on Snapdeal for a competitive price of Rs. 1999/- and will start shipping as early as 6th September. In comparison, Chromecast is available in India for Rs. 3100 and upwards on various sites – these are basically unofficial imports from USA (so no warranty is available on them)
If you are not aware, Teewe is essentially a HDMI dongle that plugs into the HDMI port of your TV and allows you to stream media wirelessly through a smartphone application onto your large screen television. The Teewe smartphone app is available on Android as well as iOS.
How does Teewe Help You?
The biggest plus is that you can aggregate all your media whether it is online or on your mobile device and view it on you big screen TV with ease. The Teewe dongle can play almost all types of media you can throw at it.
As far as the Teewe hardware goes, it runs on dual core ARM cortex A9 processor and has 1 GB of dedicated RAM. It works with any TV that has a HDMI Port and needs Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n connection to stream multimedia content.
Check out the Teewe introductory video to know more about this device:
How Teewe Differentiates From Chromecast
Teewe offers everything that Chromecast offers, but along with it, has features that will appeal to Indian audience. For example, Teewe aggregates content from various online sources like Youtube and offers Indian TV shows season by season. So, a user does not need to search different sources to get the content.
At Rs. 1999/-, the Teewe dongle is priced quite aggressively and should appeal to lot of Indians. You can go ahead and pre-order it on Snapdeal now.
The biggest advantage of chromecast is its open API and its app ecosystem. People are building a lot of apps for chromecast which increase its functionality.
Munim, Absolutely agree – Chromecast is nearly a year old and has great community. I am personally a fan of Chromecast, so I know how good it is. However, I think from a general (non-techie) Indian audience perspective Teewe can be appealing. It puts together shows season by season and can be viewed by users at their convenience.
What I am really looking forward is whether their encoding and streaming is as good as Chromecast. Even on my 2mbps line I can see HD videos on Chromecast without single buffer. I think that will be key for Teewe….