What people are saying
Rated 4 out of 5 by RonRR from Second one was the charmFirst unit I had would malfunction after about 20 minutes use. It would switch from my TV input to other inputs which were not hooked up. This would cause an error (no input found) and I couldn't go back to the TV. Tech support never heard of the problem. I gave up and bought another one, since I needed to go wireless and there were no alternatives. Second unit has been working flawlessly for 3 years. Use it for TV, DVD and Computer inputs. Have a wall mounted TV over my fireplace, so no place to put a cable box or DVD, so this works out great. Have an entertainment center across the room that holds the components. Only inconvenience is you have to point the remote at the entertainment center, not the TV itself. All in all a good solution for what I needed. Surprised that this unit or others like it are not widely used.
Rated 5 out of 5 by ChuckD from great productgreat product , works fine and all the time ...they should make a version for other tvs besides the lgsmart tv
Rated 1 out of 5 by Moumen from will NOT WORK with other TVs than LGLG AN-WL100 Wireless Media BoxThey did not mentioned in the description that this will work for LG TV only. My TV is Samsung so this will not work with my TV. If this were clearly mentioned in the description I would not have made this purchase
A wireless USB hub converts the data transmitted by the connected devices to WiFi signals that can be forwarded to other network users. The devices that need network access are directly connected to the hub which communicates with your WiFi router to make their information available to other users of the network. Docking Stations. PowerExpand Elite 13-in-1 Thunderbolt 3 Dock. PowerExpand 12-in-1 USB-C PD Media Dock. PowerExpand+ 7-in-1 Thunderbolt 3 Mini Dock. Comprehensive Connectivity, Powerful Charging, High-Speed, High-Def. The Wi-Fi hub and easy access With this Portable External Hard Drive, you can share Wi-Fi connection with up to 7 devices. With this feature, you can stream up to 3 different movies with 3 different devices simultaneously. This drive also facilitates automatic synchronization with Google Drive or Dropbox.
Holding up a tablet at a wedding or party to take snapshots: fair game, or just lame? The etiquette jury's still out on that score, but wherever you fall on the issue, we bet you've used your tablet or smartphone to create photos, videos, data, or files you just can't replace. And, just like any other bundle of bits you may have created on a desktop or laptop, our first question is the age-old one: What are you doing to back it all up?
If you're like too many of us, the answer is 'nothing.'
Now, if you have your tablet or smartphone configured to auto-upload your created media to the cloud or share it with your social-media accounts, maybe you don't need to worry. But if you take lots of video or photos with your mobile device, and you would be crushed to lose it all were the device stolen, broken, or dipped in the sea, you need a backup plan. Enter one possibility: a wireless drive.
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Wireless Drives: The Landscape
Note that portable, wireless hard drives are not just for backup. Yes, they let you back up precious content from devices that don't typically take a directre all slot-less.) One of the wireless drives profiled here can come in handy if you want to, say, carry a library of movies on a trip to watch on a phone or tablet, but don't have the room in its local storage. (You access the content, or transfer it to and fro, using vendor-supplied apps.) Plus, they'll also work with ordinary PCs equipped with a wireless connection, so you can pair the drive with your laptop over wireless--or you can just use a USB wired connection, like you would with an ordinary external drive.
Some wireless drives employ flash memory, but most use standard 2.5-inch platter hard drives inside, the same kind of compact drive mechanism used in laptops. As you might guess, platter-drive-based models offer far more gigabytes for your dollar, but the flash-based ones are better able to survive jostling and bumps while operating. We've looked at a bunch of models on the market, of different paradigms, even including one solid-state (SSD) model from WD, using fast NAND memory inside.
Most of the drives profiled below are, at their heart, mobile hard drives in an external chassis, equipped with a battery for on-the-go operation. Most also let you pass your Wi-Fi connection through the device, so it's possible to maintain wireless Internet access while remaining connected to the drive.
A related wireless-drive paradigm is the excellent and flexible Kingston MobileLite Wireless , which acts like a wireless drive without the hard drive, letting you turn any USB key, USB hard drive, or SD card into a wireless storage drive. If you own a host of existing USB storage, this could be a cheap and easy way to cobble together a wireless-drive equivalent without actually buying one. You can use it for occasional wireless-drive backups without investing in a unit with its own storage. And another still-different one is the Lenovo ThinkPad Stack (listed above), which is a mobile-accessory set that includes hard drive, power bank, and router modules that together can work like a wireless hard drive. It's been on the market a while, but it's a unique solution for serious mobile types.
Buying a Wireless Drive: The Basics
A few key things to look out for in any wireless drive...
SD, or No SD? A few wireless hard drives include an SD card slot built into the body of the drive. Having this slot can make accessing (and/or backing up) the contents of a camera card easy.
Weigh the Raw Capacity. Any of these drives that uses an internal platter mechanism will cost less per gigabyte than one based on flash memory. You'll want to do the math on the cost per gigabyte on any drive (total capacity in gigabytes, divided by the cost in dollars) that you are considering to assess the relative value.
Consider Battery Life. This is one way in which our formal reviews of these devices are invaluable. Check out our battery tests on the various drives to get an idea of relative longevity if you do mean to use these for extensive streaming of music, photos, or video away from a power plug. Also, realize: It's not an absolute measure by any means, but the bigger-chassis drives tend to have larger batteries and thus longer potential running times. A few can also serve as power banks, recharging your mobile gadgets off the drive battery.
Look at the Software Interface. This is another front on which reviews will come in handy. The app aspect of the wireless drive will vary depending on platform (iOS versus Android), and some experiences are better than others. You'll want to look at the particulars. This is mainly an issue for how the wireless drive connects with phones and tablets; we expect that most users, when connecting one of these drives to a laptop or desktop, will use the wired connection and manage the contents of the drive using Windows Explorer or the macOS file manager.
Check the Streaming-File Support Specifics. If your main reason for considering one of these drives is for it to act as a streaming source for music or movies, look into which types of files you can play through the provided app. If your collection consists of files in less-common formats such as FLAC, you'll want to be double-mindful of this.
Know the Maximum Connectable Devices. Wireless drives vary in terms of how many tablets or other mobile devices you can connect to, or stream from, them at any given time. If, say, you intend to stream different content to a host of kid-controlled tablets in the family minivan, pay attention to this. Also know that the kind of content you are streaming can affect the smoothness of playback. Three simultaneous MP3-music streams are a lot different, in terms of demands on the drive, than three streams of 1080p video.
![External Wireless Media Hub External Wireless Media Hub](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0257/5656/5579/products/travel-router-02.jpg?v=1569237581)
![Media Media](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51XVQDScKoL._AC_SL1500_.jpg)
Ready for Our Recommendations?
External Wireless Media Hub Best Buy
You won't find a ton of these kinds of drives on the market, but we've tested most of them. For info on more ordinary wired portable drives, check out our roundup of the best external hard drives, as well as our guide to the best external SSDs.
Portable Wireless Hub
And for additional backup options, also take a look at our buying guides and favorites lists for the best network-attached storage (NAS) devices and cloud storage services.
This story has been produced in partnership with our sister site, Computer Shopper.