Building a Family Media Server for Your Car

Prior to our recent trip to Colorado, I tackled one of our family’s most pressing issues – giving kids video options when going down the road!  With one DVD player for 3 kids, I made a decision last year that I would find some solution so that one kid could use to watch Barbie movies while another kid could watch “Spongebob” and, yet another, could use to watch “Ramona and Beazus”.  After  quite a bit of research, I found the perfect solution – the Hoo Too Wireless Router/Wifi Repeater/Hard drive companion.

This thing is literally one of these most versatile pieces of technology I have ever seen.  All you have to do is hook up an external hard drive to it.  And, it emits a local wifi signal.  There is an app that you can download onto an Android tablet or via an iOS device called Tripmate.  If you have that app, it’s a matter of simply connecting to the Tripmate local wifi network and you can stream any movie on the external hard drive.

Keep in mind:  this will not eat up your data.  You do not need a data connection to the internet in order to make this work.  I simply have this Hoo Too device plugged in to the cigarette lighter via a car adapter.  The external hard drive connects to the Hoo Too and is powered by the Hoo Too.

How did it work?  Like a charm.  The kids connected to the Tripmate network and everyone streamed exactly what they wanted.

What else will the HooToo do?  

• It’s also a backup charger if you need an additional charge for a device.
• It acts as a wifi repeater, if you have a dead wifi zone in your house.
• It’s a wifi access point.  Let’s say you are at a hotel and you only have an ethernet connection.  You can hook that cord in and create your own private wifi network.
• I haven’t tested this one out, yet.  But, others have been able to create a wifi network from the Gogo in-flight internet on a plane.  We have all run into that issue where you are on a plane and you want to have multiple devices on the web but you don’t want to pay for a signal for multiple devices.  Simply, let the HooToo do the work for you.  Take the signal into the HooToo and operate off of your in-flight network.

HooToo is one of the most versatile little devices I have ever seen at that price point.  It’s a must-have.  Especially if you do any traveling.  And, with kids, it’s a great travel asset.