• 9point6@lemmy.world
    31·
    2 days ago

    The best for a MacBook is probably no dongle and just using AirPlay by several magnitudes

    Wireless HDMI is kinda rubbish in general, and basically doesn’t work over any distance where it would make sense (i.e. a cable would be too long or inconvenient)

    There are multiple ways to add airplay to a display, the most seamless would be an apple TV, but that obviously comes at a premium. I believe Amazon added it to their fire dongles, and I think you can set it up using Kodi on a Raspberry pi

      • 9point6@lemmy.world
        3·
        2 days ago

        I guess it might help if you clarify your use case then

        If this isn’t for home, Is this for in hotels or what? What are you trying to stream wirelessly and why not use a cable?

        FWIW I tried out a few wireless HDMI products just after COVID lockdowns and every single one was crap. Low resolution if I got any kind of signal, and I don’t think I used any that didn’t start cutting out after a metre or two of distance, especially after running them for any length of time and letting them get hot.

        It’s obviously been a few years, so perhaps the technology has improved a bit since then, but based on my experience, I can only recommend against them entirely as a class of product.

        One thing to always have a look for in niche use cases like this, is to find a business/commercial solution for this problem and look at what that hardware does. That should give you an idea of what’s actually possible and what it costs to do it. If the product has been around for a few generations, you might even be able to get previous generations for cheaper and it’s still more likely to work over any of the crap you can buy for ~£100 that I tried.

        Also AirPlay should work just fine without WiFi, there’s a mode where the devices connect directly to each other, skipping any network entirely.

      • accideath@feddit.org
        3·
        2 days ago

        That is actually not true. If your AppleTV has tvOS 9 or newer, you can activate P2P AirPlay. It’ll create an Ad-Hoc network only between your TV and Mac/Phone and use that for AirPlay, no further network or internet connection necessary. You just have to activate it in your AppleTV settings.

        Edit: Alternatively, the Hollyland Mars 4K is a pretty decent wireless video transmitter that supports HDMI, that I’ve used in a professional setting sometimes. Not sure it is what you’re looking for (or sensible, price wise) but you probably won’t get a more stable connection with anything cheaper.