The media streaming apps and devices arena is not exactly new, there are many devices and apps available here to help you stream media from your mobile device to the bigger screens that you have at home or wherever you are. The most popular one being the Chromecast from Google. But the Chromecast has some limitations. Teewe is a streaming HDMI dongle that is made in India and tries to overcome many of these limitations. Let us take a good look at this streaming device today.
The device is packaged very nicely and looks very neat and professional.The unboxing was without hassle. The contents of the box are the dongle, the HDMI and USB cable and a power adaptor that you can use if your TV does not have a USB port.
This is how the device looks when you unpack it. Pretty sturdy design. Has a premium feel and the color, material used and the design are all top class. One does not get a cheap plasticky feel from it. Setting up the device is a breeze. You need to have a WiFi network and a HDMI port for it to connect to the TV. On your mobile device, you need to install the Teewe app. The app allows you to scan your WiFi network and connect to the Teewe dongle. The UI of the app is pretty neat and gives you an integrated dashboard that has local media, your youtube videos and Live TV. Navigation is easy and smooth. It gets a bit laggy when you are syncing your youtube account for the first time. It also lags a lot when you have a large number of files locally stored on the device. One particular issue I noticed was that the distance from your WiFi router affects the app and the dongle. Farther you go, tougher it gets to stream. I hope they get a fix for that soon.
Coming to the desktop computer, there are two ways to use the Teewe, one is using the Chrome plugin where you can stream what you are playing on one tab of your browser. The other way is to use the desktop client. Here, the client is well thought out and provides a similar integrated interface. Reminds one a lot of the iTunes interface. When trying to install it, there were some jdk version issues that cropped up. But eventually, everything was sorted out.
Here also there were issues when the number of media files on the desktop were high. But my guess is that eventually all this will get sorted out and we will see a seamless interface.
The price of this device is INR 1,999/- and it is available on Flipkart, Amazon, Shopclues, Paytm and the company portal, teewe.in. I am very impressed with this device because it is a product of an Indian Startup and is trying to disrupt the media streaming space. It is an impressive device but there are some kinks that need to be ironed out.
Verdict:
Overall very impressed with the device, overcomes a lot of limitations that the Chromecast has and is a very well thought out product. Given the price, it is definitely worth a buy. But ensure that you have a strong WiFi signal and line-of-sight connection with the router. Definitely a player to watch for in the long run.
