There’s nothing quite like Google’s Chromecast Audio — a tiny disc that lets you wirelessly sling music to practically any dumb speaker, even create multi-room audio configurations like a poor man’s Sonos setup, just by plugging into its 3.5mm line-out and adding some power over micro-USB.
And that’s why it’s such a shame Google is discontinuing the dongle today. The company provided The Verge (and Android Police, earlier) with this statement:
Our product portfolio continues to evolve, and now we have a variety of products for users to enjoy audio. We have therefore stopped manufacturing our Chromecast Audio products. We will continue to offer assistance for Chromecast Audio devices, so users can continue to enjoy their music, podcasts...