Plex should work with a Chromecast, Roku or Firestick.
I personally love my Rokus. I have 2 Roku TVs (TCL brand), and 2 more separate devices. There’s very little they can’t do - including casting from Chrome. The newer 4k units can do AirPlay as well, but that won’t be something you need.
I have a Chromecast. It connects to the TV via hdmi, but it needs a usb connection for power. If your tv has a powered USB port, you can connect to that, but you can also just use a USB cord connected to a charger. No USB functionality is required for your TV.
The laptop or phone is just used to control the streaming, it isn’t screen mirroring in most cases. Once the streaming is happening, you can switch off your phone. Also, other devices on the same network – another phone, e.g., can pause, play, and depending on the app, more things, like cue up more videos.
Mine is an early version, and we’re very happy with it, even without any of the new bells and whistles.
I power my Chromecast from a power board, plugging the USB connector into a USB wall plug.
I stream most stuff from my PC - Netflix from a browser window in Chrome, downloads using either VLC or Soda player. Only once in a while do I stream something from an app on my phone, but I use Google Home as my remote while watching.
I have an ancient Chromecast and it has never presented any problems.
I got a Fire Stick for Christmas for only $16 and am having a ton of problems with it. I had it hooked up with a seperate plug to an outlet but half the time I start it up it starts with no sound and sometimes refuses to leave sleep mode so I have to unplug and replug it back in.
I just casting this very page through my Chromecast to my TV and it worked fine. The scrolling is a little delayed.
Then, I switched to my Vimeo page, and it streamed just fine as well. When I full-screened the video, it took over the whole television screen. Sound came through my audio system. So, I think it’s just what you’re looking for.
I have the new Chromecast (with the remote), but I’m nearly positive this would work with my old Chromecast as well.
If you cast YouTube, it will probably work natively on the Chromecast. I just tried Netflix and it looks like it will show the Netflix page (mirroring my computer) until you start a video, then the video takes over the whole television. However, it’s still casting my screen – my screen is also showing the video. It has an option to turn off the video on the computer screen to save your battery.
Anyway, I think it would work for your needs.
Thanks for all the helpful contributions so far! Parallel to this thread, I also read many other online sources, and there’s one thing I’m not quite clear about: My understanding is that a Google Chromecast doesn’t run apps on the device itself, but must be handled from a smartphone or a computer, whereas a Kindle Fire Stick runs its own apps (and allows you to download more) as well as streaming content from devices in the same network. Am I right?
ETA: this would be a big plus for the Fire Stick for me, because I always have storage troubles on my three year old phone and have no space left for streaming apps.
There’s a new version that’s much more like a firestick or Roku.
My old school Chromecast requires phone apps to control. It’s a bit of a hybrid system. You can have it configured to show the video on the phone, too, for controlling fast forward, rewind, etc. But it’s not mirroring the phone screen. The Chromecast picks up the stream of whatever is cast to it. My phone can get powered off in the middle of a stream, and it would not affect it. And another phone would have the power to pause and play what’s being cast.
The ability to mirror the screen is a minor feature, for the way I use it. You would need the YouTube, Prime video, Netflix, Hulu, etc. apps that you intend to use, to use it from your phone. All of those streaming apps, and many more, have a “cast” button built in to make them work seamlessly with the Chromecast.
An advantage of this setup is that the apps can be updated, while the Chromecast part stays the same. My smart TV Prime video app is terrible, and never works. So I wind up casting Prime from my phone most of the time.
My current solution for that is having MiniDLNA running on a Raspberry Pi, and then using BubbleUPnP on my cell phone to control playback and stream to Chromecast. Works (mostly) fine, and wasn’t a lot of trouble to set up, and I have my entire media library (music, films, and pictures) available for playback on any device at any time. It does sometimes struggle with larger video files that aren’t in a format the Chromecast natively supports, as the transcoding then is done on the cell phone (I think), but I believe that there’s a possibility to use server-side transcoding, but I believe that doesn’t come for free.