Rivian Gets Google Cast, YouTube App in Holiday Update

Back in May of this year, Google and Rivian teamed up to announce that Rivian vehicles would “soon” support Google Cast from phones to the big screen in cabin, plus a native YouTube app would bring an improved or native YouTube experience. We told you at that time that we’d come back and let you know when a date for rollout was here, and well, here we are.

Rivian is preparing to push out a holiday update to Rivian R1S and R1T that will bring both of those features, although they will apparently be in some sort of preview state. The update, detailed by RivianTrackr, is listed as build 2024.47 and contains a lot more than the Google Cast and YouTube stuff, which might interest you if you own one these EVs. We’ll link to their changelog below.

As for the Google Cast and YouTube app, they’ll be built into a new “Video” app on the main display of Rivian vehicles. There should be Google Cast and YouTube icons to choose from. If you hit the Google Cast option, it should then make the screen available as a Cast target from most video apps. Unfortunately, it appears that Netflix is not supported. And for YouTube, you’d simply open that app and (likely) sign-in to view your YouTube account.

Google Cast and YouTube Now Available

You can now use Google Cast and YouTube in your vehicle while parked! Choose the new Video app from the bottom of the center display. Then choose the Google Cast or YouTube icon, and follow the on-screen instructions to get started. Everyone can preview Google Cast and YouTube before they become part of the Connect+ package at a later date.

NOTE

You can cast from most mobile apps that have Google Cast. We don’t support Netflix.

During the preview period, vehicles without a Connect+ subscription will have their vehicle hotspot activated to utilize Google Cast. However, to access other media apps without a Connect+ subscription, you must turn off the vehicle’s hotspot.

Rivian has a paid connectivity suite for their vehicles called Connect+ and this functionality will end up as a part of this subscription, according to the notes above. For now, everyone is able to use these features until that happens, so dive in and see if it’s something worth paying for. Rivian did not say when they’ll become paid features, only that it’ll happen at a “later date.”

And again, there is a ton of stuff in this update that you’ll want to read about at the link below if you are a Rivian owner of either Gen 1 or Gen 2 vehicles. This is their big end-of-year update.

As for rollout, the update may only be in a preview phase for now and should hit everyone’s vehicles in the coming weeks.

// RivianTrackr

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