While watching videos and viewing pictures on your smartphone or tablet are more than okay when you’re on your own, it becomes a little more awkward or inconvenient when you want to show it to a group. That’s why streaming devices have been slowly growing in popularity, with Chromecast being the most well-known one. Microsoft has now released the Wireless Display Adapter that has the capability of streaming your content onto bigger screens, as long as your device is Miracast-enabled.
Miracast is the streaming protocol that people were expecting to rival Google’s Chromecast if ever they released a dongle for it. And indeed, Microsoft has now released the Wireless Display Adapter which will of course, wirelessly connect your smartphone or tablet to an HDTV, computer monitor or projector so you could show the slideshow of your latest vacation or do your presentation to your client from your mobile device.
How you do it is simple. Just plug both the USB end and HDMI end onto your bigger screen of choice. Then just select the appropriate input from the screen and then pair your smartphone or tablet, and even your laptop. You have the option to either mirror or extend your screen, depending on the capability of your device. It can share both audio and video so no need for extra speakers or audio wires.
The Miracast technology lets you stream anything from your device as it doesn’t limit it only to certain apps. So it’s not just Netflix or Amazon Prime videos that you can stream onto the screen, but even apps like Flipboard, ebook readers and even Microsoft Office documents can also be shown or projected. So no need to lug around a projector or even look for fitted adapters for your device. Now let’s see if this will indeed challenge Chromecast’s dominance over streaming devices for now.
SOURCE: Microsoft
This article is way off base. Miracast was never expected to come “rival” the chromecast. Google was actually first with miracast with android supporting it natively and then windows phone.
On top of that, most new TVs support it already making this thing useless. What is great about chromecast is that it just uses the phone as a handoff then sources the media in its own, freeing up the phone. It also, through the api, allows unique interactions from the app to what is displayed such as games, subtitles, etc.
Miracast dongles have been around for wrote a while now and offer nothing new that the chromecast doesn’t already do. You can mirror your screen on both desktop and mobile plus full app support. This just offers screen mirroring and costs twice as much.