The USB plug is only for power, while the HDMI plugs into your display. But there’s a full Wi-Fi card and antenna hidden in those dongles, and that’s what you’ll use to connect your laptop or phone.
Looking at the Wireless Display Adapter, you might think it’s some sort of USB to HDMI cable, instead of a wireless adapter. It does this using the 1080p Miracast protocol, support for which is baked into recent versions of Windows and Android.īut is a wireless HDMI cable a good alternative for the Chromecasts and Apple TVs of the world, or is it too complex for most users to worry over? Unlike the Chromecast and the Apple TV, this isn’t a device with an app ecosystem: it’s simply a way to wirelessly turn your TV or HDMI-compatible display into an external monitor. Microsoft hopes it’s the $50 Wireless Display Adapter. Our Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter review could hold the answer for Windows loyalists. Google’s $35 Chromecast works if you’re deep into Google’s ecosystem, and Apple’s $150 TV box is the tool of choice for Apple fans. The TV is bigger, and looks better, but connecting to it sometimes just isn’t worth the hassle. There are a lot of devices designed to solve exactly that problem. We’ve all watched YouTube videos on a laptop while the TV sat unused across the room.