Waching daily Feb 3 2019

So you want a device to travel with that enables laptopless camera card backups AND works as

a travel router AND as a battery for your phone?

And the RAVPower FileHub is out of stock AGAIN???

In this video I show you another alternative: the Kingston MobileLite Wireless G3.

I'm Matt Williams, the technovangelist; I use all sorts of gadgets in my job as an

evangelist for a devops monitoring company.

I use this channel to talk about them.

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name technovangelist.

My timing for these videos is a bit haphazard while taking care of our adopted baby girl,

now 7 weeks old.

So subscribe to hear when the next one is out.

The Kingston MobileLite Wireless G3 is a tiny device that packs in a USB battery, an SD

Card reader, and a wifi access point that lets you share wifi and backup sd cards on

the road and so much more.

The scenario that got me started with a similar device was an Italian vacation during which

I left the laptop at home.

I think most folks will use it to be able to share their latest pics with the family

on a big screen rather than the tiny camera display, to share the hotel wifi, and to stream

the videos on a USB stick to their iPad or another tablet.

If you go to amazon right now and search for Kingston MobileLite Wireless you will see

two models that look the same.

But they actually have two main differences: the battery and the onboard storage.

The MobileLite Wireless G3 has a 5400 mAh battery and no onboard storage.

The MobileLite Wireless Pro has a 6700 mAh battery and comes with 64GB onboard storage.

You can decide if the extra cost is worth it for you.

Let's take a closer look at the features.

First, there is the ethernet jack.

It's just a 100 Mbit ethernet port.

That's fine, I don't think a device like this needs to have gigabit since the other

connections may still be the bottleneck.

The reason an ethernet port is useful is if your hotel has an ethernet jack and you want

to share the connection.

Of course, that means you are going to have to remember to bring an ethernet cable.

Now, if you know that 100 megabit is a problem and that gigabit ethernet is important to

have in a travel router, check out this video about the GL-iNet AR750S.

Turning the device around and you see a micro-B USB port.

This is for charging the device.

It takes about 3 hours or so to fully charge.

On the other side is the reset button.

Its just a little hole next to the power button and you will need to shove a paper clip in

there for 13 seconds to reset to factory defaults.

And then there is the power button.

Tap it to see current battery levels and hold it in for about three seconds to start it

up and power it down.

There is another button you need to know about.

Its the button that lets you subscribe.

You can find it below this video.

Go ahead.

Click it.

Turning the device again and you have a USB2 port.

If you have a USB 3 drive, it will still work, but you definitely won't get the speeds

you may be used to getting locally.

It outputs 3.7v at 2a so some devices might be charged faster, but your iphone will not.

And then finally you have an SD Card slot.

At the top are three lights.

The right one shows power.

Green if its 51% or higher, Red shows that its lower than 25%, and Yellow is everything

in the middle.

The middle light shows whether the device is broadcasting on wifi.

If you see a light here, you can connect to it from your tablet or phone.

When it flashes there is activity on it.

The left light indicates that the device is bridged to the internet or another wifi access

point.

Its possible to access the device from a webpage but you don't get much there.

Some folks complained about the Web UI on the RAVPower FileHub, but that webpage was

super advanced and elegant compared to what you get on the web with the MobileLite.

I think they want to make it clear that you should not use the web interface.

The mobile app is the way you should work with it in pretty much every case.

But just like with the RavPower, I think you should use another file manager app to actually

work with your files.

I personally use the FileBrowser Go app from Stratospherix.

When you open up the MobileLite app there is a row of buttons at the bottom.

Home is where we are right now.

Music and Video will show all the music files and video files on the connected storage devices.

Backup is one-touch to backup everything on your phone.

And settings is where you can configure the wireless settings and get access to some other

features.

Unlike with the FileHub, there are no options to configure for DLNA or samba, they are just

enabled by default.

If you go back home you can navigate through the files in a simple file explorer.

Of course, just like with the other devices I have shown here I think the FileBrowser

Go app is far more functional and is what you should be using to manipulate files on

external drives.

And if you are using that app, the other videos about the RavPower FileHub completely apply

to this as well.

Now if you are doing a backup, using the devices app is always going to be faster than a third

party app.

FileBrowser Go and all the other apps will move the file on your SD Card to your phone

and then back out to the hard drive because they just see different drives and don't

understand that there is a small computer in the middle.

Call these things whatever you like but they are all small self-powered linux boxes with

a semi-nice UI on top.

Compared to the FileHub and the GLInet and other devices, why should you consider buying

the MobileLite from Kingston?

Well first off, compared to RAVPower, Kingston seems to be much better when it comes to supply

chain management.

The RavPower devices were out of stock for months.

They discontinued the new model but didn't explain why.

The replacement model was released and its out of stock again as I am recording this.

Of course this could be because the FileHub is popular and no one is buying the MobileLite.

Another strength is that this is roughly half the cost...and the manual is far better...and

the mobile app is a bit easier to deal with.

There are fewer features that you can customize on the MobileLite, but all of the most important

things are there.

And if you want to go further, they make the source code for the firmware freely available

which is pretty cool.

I'll do some videos in the future that look at SD Card transfer speeds to see how it compares

to the FileHub.

If you would be interested in seeing those, be sure to subscribe to the channel below.

And if you have any experience with the device or have any questions, leave some comments

as well.

I love answering the questions, but please remember, I have zero affiliation with these

companies.

I just make videos in my spare time.

If you purchase the devices with the links below I get a percent or two from Amazon at

no cost to you.

Thanks so much for watching, and have a great day.