PLAiR, the wireless streaming HDMI dongle, has been on show at Engadget Expand 2013 event in San Francisco. Saad Hussain, PLAiR co-founder and CEO, demonstrated the $99 PLAiR device to Engadget, and called it “essentially, AirPlay for anyone” as it works with a whole plethora of Windows, Android and also Apple devices. The other bonus over AirPlay is it doesn’t need an Apple TV box, just a common-or-garden HDMI equipped TV.
Plug it in and let the beaming begin
How do you get PLAiR to work? If you are using a desktop PC then you have to download the PLAiR browser plugin for Chrome, it can detect any videos in your browser window. When there is a video that can be played on your TV using the PLAiR device a button appears at the upper right corner of the video. Click that button and the video gets sent to the HDMI TV dongle. Now you are free to do what you wish with your laptop; work, play or even turn it off – the video streaming has passed to the PLAiR wireless HDMI dongle. Once the video has been passed to PLAiR, the device where the video came from isn’t needed any more. For your Android or iOS tablet or smartphone there is a special PLAiR app available.
As well as this online video functionality PLAiR can stream videos/pictures from your computer or mobile. The software uses a drag and drop queue system, adding files adds them to a playlist which the player will work through or you can skip through the list as you wish using your computer/mobile device as the controller.
Please note that the Plair dongle is powered via a microUSB port, the promo video above shows it connecting to one of the TV’s USB ports, nice if you have one. At the time of writing the PLAiR has temporarily sold out. However the company offer a notification system, just input your email and wait.
