How to Share Your Screen to a TV Without AirPlay or a Casting App

Aug 5, 2026

— 4 min read

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Someone emailed Sharry's support address a few weeks ago with a question I hadn't thought about once while building the product: how do you get a Sharry session onto a TV screen?

I didn't have a great answer on the spot. Sharry is built for one browser tab talking to another — pair programming, a quick demo, showing someone a bug live. A television had never come up. But the question was reasonable (sometimes "someone" is a whole room, not one person hunched over a laptop), so I went and actually tested it instead of guessing. Three methods turned out to work, all without AirPlay, without a native casting app, and without installing anything — which, if you know Sharry, is exactly the constraint the product already lives by.

Why AirPlay and Casting Apps Are the Default Assumption

If you want to get something from a browser onto a TV, the reflexive answer is AirPlay (if you're in Apple's ecosystem) or a platform-specific casting app. Both work well for what they're built for, and both come with the same catch: they require a matching ecosystem on both ends. AirPlay needs an Apple device sending and an AirPlay-compatible receiver on the other side. A casting app needs to be installed, sometimes paired to an account, sometimes updated before it'll cooperate.

That's fine when the thing you're sharing is a video file or a photo album — the app was built for exactly that job. It's more friction than necessary when the thing you're sharing is just a browser tab that's already doing the work, and the "receiving" device also has a browser. In that case there's a simpler question to ask: does the TV — or something plugged into it — already have a browser? If yes, none of the pairing dance is actually necessary.

Method 1: A Streaming Stick or Mini PC With Its Own Browser

Most streaming sticks and small media PCs connected to a TV run a real operating system with a browser available, even if it's not the first thing you reach for. Open that browser, go to sharry.live/join, enter the session, and the TV is now a viewer — no different from opening the same link on a laptop. This is the most reliable of the three methods because you're not fighting any casting protocol at all, just using the device for what it can already do.

Method 2: A Smart TV's Built-In Browser

Most current smart TVs ship with a browser buried in the settings or app menu — it's easy to miss because it isn't usually a headline feature, and TV remotes make typing a URL genuinely tedious. But it's there, and it's enough to open sharry.live/join and watch a session. If your TV has one, this skips the extra device entirely.

Method 3: Chromecast (Google TV) + a Browser App

This is the one I tested myself, specifically: a Chromecast with Google TV doesn't have a traditional browser out of the box, but the Play Store has browser apps you can install directly onto it. Once installed, the flow is identical to the other two methods — open the browser, navigate to sharry.live/join, join the session. It's a one-time setup (installing the app) rather than a truly zero-install path, but it's still not AirPlay, not a dedicated casting app tied to Sharry, and not an account or pairing step. Any general-purpose browser on the device does the job.

The Honest Caveat: Fullscreen Isn't Perfect Yet

I'd rather say this plainly than let you find out mid-demo: on some TV and desktop-breakpoint browsers, the fullscreen video controls don't behave quite right yet. It's a known rough edge, and it's actively being worked on — but if you're planning to run a session on a big screen for something that matters, it's worth a quick dry run beforehand rather than assuming fullscreen will be flawless on the first try. This isn't a "works everywhere, always" story, and I'd rather undersell it than have you hit a surprise live.

The Bottom Line

None of these three methods needed AirPlay, a native casting app, or an install beyond a browser that was already there (or, in Chromecast's case, one quick Play Store install). That's really just Sharry's core pitch — no downloads, no installs — extended to a screen it wasn't originally designed for. If the device connected to your TV can open a URL, it can be a Sharry viewer.

Try Sharry → sharry.live — open a session, share the link, done. Still free, still no account required for viewers.

Found a TV setup where this doesn't work, or have a fourth method I missed? Find me on X @pr0gstar.

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