Finally got my hands on my Indiegogo funded Airtame last night, so wanted to put up a few thoughts on it. First impressions – very good. Simple packaging, 3 instructions to get you started and includes;
- The Airtame
- AC Power Adapter
- EU Power Adapter (plug)
- UK Power Adapter (plug)
- HDMI Extension Cable
- MicroUSB cable
Getting started
This was as simple as plugging in the dongle, and installing the app. The Airtame acts as a 5GHz WiFi access point, and sets a random password – displayed on the screen. Once connected directly you can then connect it to your WiFi network. All worked without any issues.
Slow Firmware Update
As I excitedly went to try a basic stream I had my only real disappointment – a lengthy (30 mins) firmware update before I could actually use the thing. At more then one point I thought that it might have stalled out but was dissuaded from killing the power by a warning not to. An ETA or at least some guidance on how long it would take should be considered.
Cool Things
It can use a website as the background/default page – to turn this on, in the app select your Airtame. Go to Manage -> Display -> Custom -> Website
It will route your internet traffic, so once you connect to the Airtame 5GHz network, and provide it with your WiFi details you can continue to use the interweb while managing/streaming the device.
I found that when I was connecting via the WiFi router I had frequent dropped connections. Not sure if this is the router (fairly crap one) or the Airtame, but found the 5GHz connection via the Airtame to be very stable
Audio streaming – requires a restart in OS X. Then in the Airtame app, under preferences, move the streaming mode to ‘Video’ rather then the default ‘Work’. Note that this will introduce 5sec buffering by default.
