Chromecast DLNA Finder

pub package

A Dart package for discovering Chromecast and DLNA devices on your local network, providing easy-to-use APIs for scanning, categorizing, and interacting with these devices.

Features

  • 🔍 Scan for all Chromecast and DLNA devices on your local network
  • 📊 Automatic device categorization (Chromecast Dongle, Chromecast Audio, DLNA Renderer, DLNA Media Server)
  • 🌐 Support for both command-line tools and Dart/Flutter/desktop applications
  • 🔄 Continuous scanning mode support
  • 🌍 Multilingual support (English, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Hong Kong Chinese, and more)
  • 📱 Cross-platform (macOS, Linux, Windows, Android, iOS)
  • 🖥️ Logger system with flexible output (stderr, stdout, broadcast for app UI)

Installation

Use Dart's pub package manager to install:

dart pub add chromecast_dlna_finder

Or manually add it to your pubspec.yaml file:

dependencies:
  chromecast_dlna_finder: ^1.0.0

Architecture Overview

The package follows a modular architecture:

lib/
├── chromecast_dlna_finder.dart    # Main export file
└── src/
    ├── chromecast_dlna_finder_base.dart  # Core functionality
    ├── discovery/                  # Device discovery modules
    │   ├── device.dart            # Device model & type definitions
    │   ├── discovery_service.dart  # Main discovery orchestrator
    │   ├── mdns_scanner.dart      # Chromecast discovery via mDNS
    │   ├── ssdp_scanner.dart      # DLNA discovery via SSDP
    │   └── cached_device.dart     # Device caching mechanism
    ├── locales/                   # Internationalization
    │   ├── en.json                # English strings
    │   ├── zh_TW.json             # Traditional Chinese
    │   ├── zh_CN.json             # Simplified Chinese
    │   ├── ja.json                # Japanese
    │   ├── de.json                # German
    │   ├── fr.json                # French
    │   ├── es.json                # Spanish
    │   ├── it.json                # Italian
    │   ├── ru.json                # Russian
    │   ├── pt.json                # Portuguese
    │   ├── zh_HK.json             # Hong Kong Chinese
    │   └── ...                    # More languages
    └── util/                      # Utility classes
        ├── dlna_device_utils.dart  # DLNA-specific helpers
        ├── localization.dart      # Localization infrastructure
        ├── localization_manager.dart # Localization logic
        ├── logger.dart            # Logging system
        └── platform_info.dart     # Platform detection

Key Components:

  • ChromecastDlnaFinder: Main entry point for all operations
  • Discovery Service: Coordinates the scanning process between different protocols
  • Device Model: Unified representation of both Chromecast and DLNA devices
  • Scanner Modules: Specialized modules for each protocol (mDNS, SSDP)
  • Localization System: Custom i18n implementation for multilingual support with fallback (e.g. zh_TW_Hant → zh_TW → zh)
  • Logger: Flexible logger supporting stderr, stdout, and broadcast (for app/Flutter UI)

Usage

As a Command-Line Tool

Install the CLI tool globally:

dart pub global activate chromecast_dlna_finder

Run a scan:

chromecast_dlna_finder --timeout 5

Command-line options:

Options:
  -h, --help            Show help information
  -t, --timeout=<seconds>  Scan timeout in seconds (default: 5)
  -m, --minify          Output minified JSON
  -q, --quiet           Suppress progress messages
  -d, --debug           Enable verbose debug information
  -l, --lang=<language>  Specify language (e.g., en, zh-TW, ja, de, fr, es, it, ru, pt, zh-HK, zh-CN)

In Dart/Flutter/PC App Code

import 'package:chromecast_dlna_finder/chromecast_dlna_finder.dart';

Future<void> main() async {
  // Initialize logger for app/Flutter UI log listening
  final logger = AppLogger();
  logger.setOutputs({LoggerOutput.broadcast});
  await logger.init();

  // Listen to log stream (for UI or custom handling)
  final subscription = logger.broadcastStream?.listen((record) {
    print('[APP LOG][${record.level}] ${record.message}');
  });

  // Initialize the scanner with injected logger
  final finder = ChromecastDlnaFinder(logger: logger);

  // Scan for devices
  final devices = await finder.findDevices(timeout: Duration(seconds: 5));

  // Output all discovered devices
  print('Discovered Chromecast devices:');
  for (final device in devices['chromecast'] ?? []) {
    print('- ${device.name} (${device.ip})');
  }

  print('Discovered DLNA devices:');
  for (final device in devices['dlna'] ?? []) {
    print('- ${device.name} (${device.ip})');
  }

  // Release resources
  await finder.dispose();
  await logger.dispose();
  await subscription?.cancel();
}

Output Format

Scan results are output in JSON format with the following structure:

{
  "status": true,
  "error": [],
  "chromecast": [],
  "chromecast_dongle": [],
  "chromecast_audio": [],
  "dlna": [],
  "dlna_renderer": [],
  "dlna_media_server": []
}

Device Information

Each device object contains the following information:

{
  "name": "Living Room TV",
  "ip": "192.168.1.100",
  "type": "chromecastDongle",
  "model": "Chromecast",
  "location": "...",
  "avTransportControlUrl": "...",
  "renderingControlUrl": "..."
}

Advanced Usage

Getting Device Control URLs (DLNA Renderers Only)

import 'package:chromecast_dlna_finder/chromecast_dlna_finder.dart';

Future<void> main() async {
  final finder = ChromecastDlnaFinder();
  final devices = await finder.findDevices(timeout: Duration(seconds: 5));
  for (final device in devices['dlna_renderer'] ?? []) {
    print('Renderer: ${device.name}');
    print('  - AVTransport control URL: ${device.avTransportControlUrl}');
    print('  - Rendering control URL: ${device.renderingControlUrl}');
  }
  await finder.dispose();
}

Logger Output Control

  • To output logs to stderr (CLI): 
    AppLogger().setOutputs({LoggerOutput.stderr});
  • To output logs to broadcast stream (for app/Flutter UI): 
    AppLogger().setOutputs({LoggerOutput.broadcast});
  • To disable all logs: 
    AppLogger().setOutputs({});

Multilingual Support & Fallback

  • Supported languages: English, Traditional Chinese (zh_TW), Simplified Chinese (zh_CN, zh), Japanese (ja), German (de), French (fr), Spanish (es), Italian (it), Russian (ru), Portuguese (pt), Hong Kong Chinese (zh_HK), and more.
  • Fallback order: language-region-variant → language-region → language (e.g. zh_TW_Hant → zh_TW → zh)
  • You can specify language via CLI -l or in code via LocalizationManager().init(locale: 'ja').

Running Tests

This package includes comprehensive tests. To run them with detailed output:

# Run all tests with expanded output
dart test --reporter expanded

# Run specific test file
dart test test/scanners_mock_test.dart --reporter expanded

Network Requirements

  • Chromecast discovery uses mDNS (multicast DNS), requiring UDP port 5353
  • DLNA discovery uses SSDP protocol, requiring UDP port 1900 and related HTTP ports

License

MIT

Contributing

Contributions welcome! Please submit issues and suggestions to the GitHub repository.

Libraries

chromecast_dlna_finder