🛰️ oxicast

Async Google Cast (Chromecast) client for Rust — discover, connect, and control Cast devices with tokio.

Quickstart · API Docs · Examples · Guide

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What is this?

A fully async Rust client for the Google Cast protocol (Chromecast, Google TV, Cast-enabled speakers). Connect by IP or discover devices via mDNS, launch apps, load media, control playback, and react to device events — all through a clean async/await API built on tokio.

let client = CastClient::connect("192.168.1.100", 8009).await?;
client.launch_app(&CastApp::DefaultMediaReceiver).await?;
client.load_media(&MediaInfo::new(url, "video/mp4"), true, 0.0, None).await?;
client.pause().await?;
client.seek(60.0).await?;
client.play().await?;

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🚀 Quickstart

1. Install

[dependencies]
oxicast = "0.0.3"
tokio = { version = "1", features = ["full"] }

2. Connect and play

use oxicast::{CastClient, CastApp, CastEvent, MediaInfo};
use std::time::Duration;

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() -> oxicast::Result<()> {
    // Discover devices on the network
    let devices = oxicast::discovery::discover_devices(Duration::from_secs(3)).await?;
    let device = match devices.first() {
        Some(d) => d,
        None => { eprintln!("No devices found"); return Ok(()); }
    };
    println!("Found: {} at {}", device.name, device.ip);

    // Connect and play
    let client = CastClient::connect(&device.ip.to_string(), device.port).await?;
    client.launch_app(&CastApp::DefaultMediaReceiver).await?;
    client.load_media(
        &MediaInfo::new("https://example.com/video.mp4", "video/mp4"),
        true, 0.0,
        None,
    ).await?;

    // React to events
    loop {
        tokio::select! {
            Some(event) = client.next_event() => match event {
                CastEvent::MediaStatusChanged(s) => {
                    println!("{:?} at {:.1}s", s.player_state, s.current_time);
                }
                CastEvent::Disconnected(_) => break,
                _ => {}
            },
            _ = tokio::signal::ctrl_c() => {
                client.disconnect().await?;
                break;
            }
        }
    }
    Ok(())
}

Or connect directly by IP — discovery is optional:

let client = CastClient::connect("192.168.1.100", 8009).await?;

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✨ Features

Feature	Description
🔌 Async-native	Built on tokio — full async/await, no blocking calls
💓 Auto heartbeat	PING/PONG managed invisibly in the background
⚡ Instant commands	Separate reader/writer tasks — commands never wait for the read loop
📊 Reactive status	watch channels for always-fresh media and receiver state
🔄 Auto-reconnect	Exponential backoff with jitter, serialized with manual reconnect
🔍 mDNS discovery	Scan the network or stream devices as they appear
🛡️ Typed errors	Structured enum for connection, protocol, and media failures
🧵 Thread-safe	Clone + Send + Sync — share across tasks freely
📁 Local file casting	Built-in HTTP server serves files to Chromecast (opt-in serve feature)

Feature flags

Flag	Default	What it adds
discovery	✅	mDNS device scanning via mdns-sd
serve	❌	HTTP file server for casting local files

# Disable discovery, enable local file serving
oxicast = { version = "0.0.3", default-features = false, features = ["serve"] }

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📖 Documentation

Document	Description
Getting Started	Connect, discover, play media, handle events
API Overview	Full API surface with code examples
Architecture	Split-stream reactor, task lifecycle, reconnect, event delivery
Error Handling	Error enum, device errors, timeouts
CHANGELOG	Version history

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📂 Examples

Example	What it does
discover_and_play	mDNS scan, connect, load HLS stream, monitor events
media_control	Pause, seek, volume, resume
event_monitor	Print all events in real-time
custom_namespace	Send/receive on custom namespaces
device_test	14-step integration test against real hardware

# Run the device test (auto-discovers or pass IP)
cargo run --example device_test --all-features
cargo run --example device_test --all-features -- 192.168.1.100

# With protocol-level tracing
RUST_LOG=oxicast=trace cargo run --example device_test --all-features

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License

Licensed under either of Apache License 2.0 or MIT at your option.

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Trademarks

Google Cast and Chromecast are trademarks of Google LLC. This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google.