Jeff, over at CodingHorror, recently turned me onto the TripMate Titan which is a tiny wifi hub which lets you plugin a USB stick that can be shared to your iPad. This, coupled with the File Explorer app, lets your kid watch all of their programs without:

  • having to sync them onto an iPad or Kindle
  • having to have an iPad with lots of pricey storage
  • having to have them all in the precise mp4 format that Apple has blessed - MKV? AVI? MOV? No problem!

It is a $40 product you can get from Amazon and it is brilliant. Best little hardware gadget I've bought in 2016 by far.

So I've bought one, compiled a USB stick of the kid's favorite shows and taken it away from home on vacation. The only real issue that I've had is that using it takes a few discrete steps that last night, when I was exhausted, I bungled thus delaying watching by my boys. Now Jeff's post, linked above, covers all of this in exhaustive detail. What's listed below is the cliff notes version:

  1. Turn TripMate on by pressing center button and holding for 3 seconds.
  2. In wifi settings connect to the device; it will be labeled TripMateSith-xxx. The password is 11111111 (8 ones).
  3. In File Explorer add a windows share if you don't have one already. This needs to be an ip address of 10.10.10.254 with a username of admin and NO PASSWORD.
  4. Open the right folder and enjoy some form of media goodness.
  5. Turn it off by pressing and holding down for 3 seconds.

Note: You can use the built in admin tool to customize these settings and Jeff recommends it. Me? Eh. I figured just write them down.

I can see all kinds of uses for this including putting movies from a family trip onto a USB stick to view via an iPad. Recommended.