Roger Yu

USA TODAY

Aereo is bringing its streaming television technology to larger TV sets.

The controversial startup, whose technology allows its customers to stream live broadcast television to smartphones and tablets, said Thursday its service will be compatible with Google Chromecast on May 29.

Chromecast, a lighter-size digital media player dongle developed by Google, sends audio and video files played on tablets or smartphones to a larger TV set using a Wi-Fi connection.

Aereo's updated app for Chromecast will be available only on Android devices for customers in Aereo's active service markets. With its membership tiers starting at $8 a month, Aereo is available in 11 metro areas, including New York, Houston and Detroit.

Launched in 2012 with investment from billionaire media mogul Barry Diller, Aereo uses its mini-antennas -- assigned to each subscriber and stored in a remote antenna farm --to transmit over-the-air TV station content. Each antenna receives the TV signal, and allows a subscriber to view or record the content through Aereo's streaming technology.

Broadcasters have fought vigorously to ban Aereo, arguing in courts that the technology violates copyrights. The Supreme Court agreed in January to consider network television broadcasters' case against Aereo.

Aereo has maintained that over-the-air signal is freely available and its service is a simple reconfiguration of consumers using rabbit-ear antennas at home.

Broadcasters, who receive fees from pay-TV operators for the rights to their signal, are concerned that their retransmission revenues could be lowered if more consumers use Aereo or other similar services to stream over-the-air TV stations.