UBports developer Marius Gripsgård has announced earlier this morning, June 6, 2016, that he is currently working on bringing Canonical's new Aethercast (Wireless Display) for the Nexus 5 and OnePlus One Ubuntu Phone devices.

We reported last week that Canonical released the OTA-11 software update for its supported devices, including BQ Aquaris E4.5, BQ Aquaris E5 HD, Meizu MX4, and Meizu PRO 5 Ubuntu Phones, as well as the BQ Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Tablet, bringing the long-anticipated Wireless Display (also known as Miracast) functionality.

Wireless Display support for Ubuntu-powered devices means a step further in Canonical's Ubuntu convergence vision, but unfortunately, the Ubuntu Touch OTA-11 update brought it only for the Meizu PRO 5 Ubuntu Edition smartphone, with a promise that the other devices would get the new feature in future OTAs.

Nexus 5 and OnePlus One are getting Wireless Display support soon

In the meantime, Marius Gripsgård is hard at work bringing Wireless Display support to some of the unofficial Ubuntu Phones, including the OnePlus One and Nexus 5, which will be using the latest ubp-5.1 branch based on Cyanogenmod 12.1/Android 5.1, those allowing Aethercast to function on the respective smartphones.

Curious to know what's going on, we contacted Mr. Gripsgård to find out more, and he revealed to us that what you see in the attached screenshot is Wireless Display working on the Nexus 5 Ubuntu Phone, but it is not yet stable for daily use. Also, OnePlus One will get the Aethercast feature as soon as next week.

"This build is not for daily drivers, and it's still really unstable. It's build on top of our own Ubuntu Touch Android tree that we call ubp-5.1 (Aethercast required 5.0 and up) and it's not near as stable as our 'stable' channel yet. I'll be working this week on getting it stable," said Marius Gripsgård exclusively for Softpedia.

Until Marius Gripsgård finishes his great work on the Wireless Display support for Nexus 5 and OnePlus One Ubuntu Phones, you can help him do some tests and report bugs by switching to the "devel_rc-proposed" channel via http://system-image.ubports.com on your device.

Also, Mr. Gripsgård needs your help to test the Aethercast functionality with Android Mircast devices, as he doesn't yet own a Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter, which Canonical demoed for the OTA-11 update with Meizu PRO 5. So if you want to help, please install this app on your Android device.

And yes, right now, it looks like the Nexus 5 and OnePlus One are better alternatives to the official Ubuntu Phone devices that haven't yet received Wireless Display support from Canonical, with the mention that the former don't support Bluetooth (should be available soon), but they offer an open source Android tree.