Things that could only be viewed on a phone or computer in the past can now be seen on a large screen thanks to Chromecast. The potential of the Chromecast is growing every day with the addition of new Chromecast-enabled apps. There are thousands of different apps for listening to music, viewing television shows and movies, playing games, sports and more. One of the features available for your Chromecast turns your television screen into a personal dashboard. This dashboard utilizes the space on your screen to display information widgets that you choose and customize. There are options for calendars, weather forecasts, daily news, and a to-do list, just to name some. With Dashboard enabled, turning on the television in the morning gets you all the up-to-date information you need. The app that makes this possible is called Dashboard Cast. It already has many useful, informative widgets such as those listed above. It also comes with a promise of many more to come. These could include things like email, integration with audio services like Google Music and Pandora, and a picture slideshow.

Set Up the Dashboard

The Dashboard is rather simple to set up.

  1. Download the Dashboard app to your device.
  2. Open the app and press the blue “+” sign at the bottom or the “Add new widget” on the welcome screen.
  3. Choose one of the widgets to add. There are at least nine different widgets to create, so you may need to scroll down to see them all.
  4. Customize it to meet your needs. Each widget has a different set of options, but most let you choose a name for it.
  5. Click on the check mark in the top corner to save your choices.
  6. Repeat for each of the widgets you want on your dashboard. There are ads in this app, and when they appear, they do make it difficult, but not impossible, to choose your preferences. To remove the ads, the developer asks for a $2.50 one-time donation.

Customize Your Dashboard

There are many different ways to customize the dashboard. Reorder the widgets by tapping the three horizontal lines in the top-left corner and selecting “Reorder widgets.” The widgets display in a list and can be moved around by holding down one of the widget names and sliding it to where you want it. There are a variety of options for customizing the look of the dashboard. You can change the theme to light, dark or custom. There are different font sizes to make it easier to read the display or to fit more information on the dashboard. You can also change the background color of your widgets, round the corners, or add a shadow to them. There are other ways to customize Dashboard such as backgrounds, layout, and adding alarms to cast to your device at a specific time. Once it is set up, cast it to your large screen by tapping the casting icon in the top-right and selecting the device you want to send it to. The following image is what mine looked like as I started to set it up. Add what you want to this dashboard to make an information center geared to your needs. What are some other widgets that could be added to make it better?