Tuesday, January 13, 2015

HooToo Router and Barrow Tour

A new gadget that I picked up is this tiny (2.8 oz) Wi-Fi router/AP. Like most routers, it'll take a wired Internet connection and share it out via Wi-Fi. This one will also take a Wi-Fi connection and share it out via Wi-Fi on another SSID. If you plug in a USB drive, it'll also share that out as well to it's wireless clients. Power is via micro USB. In the second photo I'm using the little phone charger that I got from Alaska Airlines during my San Francisco trip. It's only 2200mAh but I'm curious how long it'll last.

The first thing you may ask is "Why would anyone need such a device?". One example would be if you have a wireless network in your business and you would also like to offer wireless access to your customers. Using a device like this you could offer the service without having customers and business devices on the same network segment. Another example is that if you are in a hotel that offers Wi-Fi and you want to plug in an Chromecast, Roku, Raspberry Pi or AppleTV into the television, you don't have to reconfigure anything if you have all of your stuff connect to the tiny HooToo access point and have it connect to the hotel Wi-Fi or wired connection. Also, many corporate and hotel Wi-Fi access points suppress the IP multicast that some discovery protocols such as Bonjour need to function.

In addition to it's small size it was only $19 on Amazon. Pretty amazing device for that price.

I brought up the suction cup mount to record some video while driving around Barrow. Since so few get the opportunity to visit, I thought I'll post a tour. Please excuse the audio. I did it as a voice over since there was so much noise in the truck from the defroster fan and jarring road noise. It was -18°F when the video was made so the suspension was pretty stiff. Kinda long and not very exciting. No background music...



And here is the third of three videos that I recorded on Sunday. Starting from the turnout at the back entrance to the university x-country ski trails and ending at REI at the other end of town via a non-shortest-path route.


4 comments:

  1. Darn, I am at work so I'll have to wait to watch the Barrow tour video.

    The HooToo seem alike a pretty nifty device.

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    1. It's not that exciting. Kind of like sitting in the truck travelling around the area.

      The HooToo router sounded pretty I Teresa get when I first heard about it and I'm pretty happy with the functionality.

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  2. What a fabulous video of barrow. Just wow. It was so smooth and you have such a soothing, calm voice. Everything about you must be easy-going.

    I really enjoyed the tour and felt like I was right there. Did you say Cake Eater Road???

    I think it was very smooth and can't see how you would improve on it. And I'm glad you didn't add music. If I'd been in the truck I'd probably ask you to turn the radio off. :^)

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    1. Thank you, very generous comment.

      The story that I was told is that Cake Eater Rd was named after a local who always sat near the intersection waving at folks driving by. The gas field workers used to save the cake from their lunch and give it to him.

      The GoPro has such a wide angle lens that the videos always look pretty smooth.

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