Wireless

The Mini Wi-Fi Home Hotspot 500 Kit, now there’s a name to get your tongue around, is a product that comes with the claim of allowing the user to “get the best Wi-Fi any where in your home”.

Manufacturers are now adding different features to their battery-charging products. A recent example of this trend is seen with t new Braven offering.

Adding extra power to your Wi-Fi signal can help remove dead spots and widen your network’s sphere of influence. One such product comes from BT.

While Bluetooth allows you to stream music to speakers supporting the technology, this next product offers to bring non-Bluetooth speakers into the mix.

As part of its mydlink Home family of products, D-Link has developed a Wi-Fi Motion Sensor. This product has been designed to alert the user to any motion that is detected in the home when they are absent for any reason. When such instances occur they will be notified through standard Push technology.

It’s been a while since I have cast my eye over a standalone Sat Nav for a car, after all most SmartPhones can give you directions so why should you buy a device designed for a single job that does have just a single purpose to get you from A to B.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? In fact it is neither of these two. This particular Nighthawk is a router from NETGEAR. Described as a “Smart Wi-Fi Router”, the Nighthawk X4 offers to bring quad-stream X4 architecture with advanced gaming and streaming benefits plus other advantages to the user’s home network.

A small black box from NETGEAR offers to provide a range of additional features based on Wi-Fi networks.

A slightly oversized watch that appears to have no connections, there is a dock but as the unit just sits in it the charging is wireless and the connection to your Android phone is via Bluetooth. So is this the next must have accessory?

This is a small unit which Roberts describe as portable and indeed it works in all modes via six ‘AA’ batteries but even when used in DAB or FM mode time between charges is not great, when used in Internet or UPnP mode even less.

Are you worried about what might be going on in your home when you are not there? The Piper can offer to help.

This unit is the size of a 13amp three way adapter. It does have a 13amp plug but few things can be plugged into it. The main task is as a Wi-Fi extender it can also be used to play music via its one connection a 3.5mm socket.

It’s been a while since I have looked at speakers from TDK. Here a small unit called Trek and then a larger unit designed to give 360degree sound. Both give good sound and the decision on which to buy could be made on size alone.

Like skimming stones on water, Wi-Fi Range Extender technology can expand the reach of your local Wi-Fi network.

This is a DAB, FM, CD, SD, USB and Bluetooth sound system. There are many other systems that can do some of the things mentioned, but very few can record to SD or USB this system gives you the option to record to both.

Instead of music while you work (more relevant to older readers), this next product lets you have music while you shower or have a bath.

It is relatively straightforward to stream and share your media content over various devices when you have access to your home wireless network but away from this environment matters may not be so cut and dried.

Continuing the MiniDrones are coming theme, this next product has more of a tank feel as it travels around and over obstacles.

Following on from the NBS8, recently reviewed on Gadgetspeak.com, Nakamichi has launched the next product in its range of portable Bluetooth speakers. Not surprisingly this next model has been named the NBS9.

This looks like a conventional DAB/FM radio and indeed it has both those functions, it is also able to be an Auxiliary output, play anything from a Media server and is also the best – and easiest to use – Internet Radio I have seen.

This is marketed as a quick and easy way to transfer data via your own secure Wi-Fi network. If your first use is via an Android (or I assume an ‘i’ device) this may be so but it may be far harder if you start from a PC with only the supplied five point guide.

Like big red buses that tend to turn up in pairs, no sooner do I complete my review of a wireless extender product than a similar product turns up.

WiFi's become an almost indispensable adjunct to our computing and home entertainment, but it has its quirks. It passes easily through interior stud walls - unless they happen to be foil-insulated - but can grind to a halt when confronted with brick. UK regulations limit transmission power, and hence the range, and dead spots are not uncommon in traditionally-constructed British homes. Sod's law dictates that these will exactly coincide with the location of your Net-connected set-top box, or you

Sometimes due to the layout of the environment and traffic demands, a wireless network can struggle to deliver. This next product offers to help.

As we move increasingly towards FTTC (fibre to the cabinet) for higher performance internet, there is an increasing requirement to separate the router from the modem. D-Link’s DIR-880L Wireless AC1900 Dual Band Gigabit Cloud Router is a high performance unit which ticks all the right boxes for those who are also moving to file sharing and media streaming.

In the past I have looked at a number of products from the HMDX range of Jam audio devices. Up till now these devices have been Bluetooth speakers but this next offering, while supporting Bluetooth and providing audio output, belongs to a different category of product. It is the Jam Transit. This is a set of wireless stereo headphones.

Once as rare as “hen’s teeth”, wireless headsets are now appearing regularly including this offering from the BOOMPOD’s range of products.

With a brand name that suggests an explosive device and an appearance that reminds me of a slightly squashed sweet I enjoyed when I was younger, the subject of this next review is a Bluetooth portable speaker unit.

With the amount of available content, either free or subscription based, you might need help to access it. This next product could help.

This time last year I checked out the Kingston MobileLite Wireless product. This device allowed you to stream content wirelessly to various mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets. The content being streamed was stored on SD memory cards and USB flash sticks. Since my original review Kingston has been busy developing the next generation of this product which, appropriately enough, is entitled MobileLite Wireless G2.