Turn any song into a yule log with Google Play Music's Chromecast Fireplace Visualizer

By Ara Wagoner
last updated

It's winter. It's Christmas. It's cold. We all just want to curl up by the fire, roast a few marshmallows, and pass out listening to good music. Well, the Google Play Music Chromecast Fireplace Visualizer can't roast the marshmallows, but we have broilers for that. Want to get these lovely flames on your Chromecast? Here's how it's done.

  1. Open Google Play Music on a desktop computer.

Load up the site

  1. Click the top left menu button.

  1. Click Settings.

  1. Under Labs, click the toggle next to Chromecast Fireplace Visualizer.

Next time you cast from your phone or computer, you'll be treated to lovely frames instead of horribly blown-up album art. I turned on Chromecast Visualizer Fireplace two years ago and I never turn it off. It can be the middle of the Texas summer, I will watch the flames before I look at hideously cropped and zoomed album art.

Now, as with all Google Play Music labs, the Chromecast Fireplace Visualizer can vanish at any time, but as many years as it's been around, I highly doubt they'll take it out yet.

What tunes are you putting on your fireplace? Are you a traditionalist, or prefer more modern merry melodies? Or are you skipping the holiday carols and blasting one Hamilton Mixtape on yours?

Ara Wagoner
Ara Wagoner

Ara Wagoner was a staff writer at Android Central. She themes phones and pokes YouTube Music with a stick. When she's not writing about cases, Chromebooks, or customization, she's wandering around Walt Disney World. If you see her without headphones, RUN. You can follow her on Twitter at @arawagco.

21 Comments
  • Can you cast this even if you're not playing music? Play Music sucks (sorry, that's my opinion), so I rarely use it for music, but this would be cool to have on TV :)
  • Stay tuned for alternative yule logs.
  • Netflix has one
  • Netflix has had it for 2 years, YouTube has a few as well My favorite is a 4 Hour Burning Pire of Darth Vader on Endor
  • There are YouTube videos of a fireplace for ten hours
  • You could just add an empty file as a song on Google play music and loop it.
  • Just out of interest ... what sucks about GPM? I have found it to be most excellent
  • Radio sucks, music 'suggestions' suck (come on Boogle, how is Tina Turner and Lil' Wayne ever related to Josh Groban music??!!), music discovery sucks a million times compared to Spotify, and the fact that you can't 'continue' a session on your other devices (or control them from another device), some music I listen to is on Spotify but not on GP (movie scores, mostly). The only thing I use it for is to keep my personal library in the cloud. So yeah, for ME it sucks. For others, it works (otherwise they'd be out of business).
  • The content is good and the service works well, but it has a terrible UI. Plus, it's miserable as a podcast player.
  • I prefer the five hour Darth Vader Yule log (funeral pyre) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVJzibVS2YM
  • I know what's going on my TV this season
  • Lol, nice!
  • So wrong but so brilliant. Thank you for this, sir.
  • I just noticed this earlier today in the settings. Yeah, until Google renders album art better, or show other options (remember Windows Media Player's color algorithm-like shapes?), turning the jule logs on!
  • this is pretty cool. I didn't know this was an option.
  • Awesome!
  • Argh! Not working for me. I get the band at the bottom of the screen that states the track name etc but where the fireplace should be is just black :(
  • It takes a minute to load up when you start casting.
  • Having used the Netflix one and the Avengers ones on YouTube recently, this will be another addition lol.
  • Was hoping to see a Note 7 joke.
  • So does this not work if I am streaming from my phone? I don't see an option on in GPM on my S7E.