Wireless Media Stick Review

 

The Wireless Media Stick was created by HSTi (Home Server Technologies, Inc.), a Calgary based company.  Most homes today have a computer and wireless router.  With these two devices and the addition of the Wireless Media Stick, you can share pictures, music, videos with your TV, stereo, DVD player, mobile device, digital picture frame, some gaming devices – almost any device with a USB playback port.  This allows you to play media almost anywhere.  

There are no subscription fees associated with this device.  The software is embedded in the stick.  You can also download the Wireless Media Stick app onto your smartphone and play your media anywhere.  The Wireless Media Stick is a computer with a Wi-Fi interface in it.

With this device, you don’t have to spend time waiting for files to be copied or moved to a USB stick or drive.  The Wireless Media Stick allows you to share data through your Wi-Fi network to the device you plug it into.  It has 1 TB of virtual memory.  There are no files actually copied to the Wireless Media Stick.

After plugging the Wireless Media Stick into my laptop, I was prompted to go through setup.  I selected ‘basic file sharing’, which was recommended.  There is also the option of ‘Advanced File Sharing’.  I then selected folders on my PC that I wanted to share with the Wireless Media Stick.  Then it was just to plug the Wireless Media Stick into a media player.

 I selected our HDTV to share files with.  My spouse had already used the Wireless Media Stick with his laptop and Android phone.  He thought his phone was the easiest of the two.  Then I tried the device with my laptop. 

The Wireless Media Stick had to be reset, which is done by holding down the reset button and watching for eleven flashes of light on the device before releasing the reset button while plugged into my computer.  This is needed when new files are added to share.  Sometimes just unplugging and plugging the stick back in works to reset the device. 

We have Windows 7 on our laptops and had to disable the firewall in order to allow files to be shared with other devices.  This was the only thing I did not like about using the Wireless Media Stick.  

In conclusion, I think the Wireless Media Stick would be a great find for a high school or college student who is on the go and is used to sharing music, video, and photos with friends.  

For those of us currently not furthering our education, it would be handy if you had a folder on your computer for downloaded movies and use the Wireless Media Stick to view them on another media device, like a television to have a larger viewing screen.  I would like to share new photos with family/friends that are currently on my computer and share with a TV via the Wireless Media Stick so they are not all hovering around my 15″ computer screen.  I don’t have a smartphone, but could see sharing files between phone and stereo with the Wireless Media Stick very convenient. 

What the Wireless Media Stick will NOT do:

The Wireless Media Stick has a suggested retail price of $89.95.  To learn more about the Wireless Media Stick, check out their website, Facebook, and Twitter.