Review of wireless August DVB-T405 tuner for mobile devices
Standard DVB-T tuners aren’t anything extraordinary. They work as intended. USB dongles usually have a signal quality problem when used indoors. However, there is an alternative option - DVB-T tuners with wireless data transmission. They allow you to place a dongle with an antenna away from the device to which it transmits data. In this review I will present just such a tuner - August DVB-T405 .
Tuner with a basic antenna
A tuner with a larger antenna works much better
The tuner is available for me locally on Allegro for about 45 EUR but it’s also on Amazon or Aliexpress and likely other stores. The tuner works only through the application on iOS and Android. For Android, the tuner worked without problems with two phones, but on the Chromebook the application could not connect to the device.
The tuner has a 650mAh battery that allows for about 3 hours of operation (charging 2 hours, micro-USB). According to the manufacturer, the WiFi connection range is about 10 meters - for me a few meters plus a window was not a problem.
After charging the device, just turn it on, position the antenna so that it has the best possible signal (by the window, behind the building outline, etc.) and it's ready. Then run the mobile application and select the device from the list - the device should connect to the tuner WiFi hotspot (you must have WiFi turned on, if there is no change of the hotspot - connect manually).
Tuner WiFi hotspot
Device selection
After the first connection, you need to scan for channels. If the receiver catches the signal then you should get the channel list and then you can start watching TV. The channel list should also be re-scanned when moving the tuner to another location.
Settings
Main application window
Channel list
The application also allows you to record TV, although one of the smartphones had a problem with it - the image stuttered - either the file system was not able to keep up with saving the stream, or the CPU / lack of hardware support for this operation in it caused performance problems. However, as a tuner the device performed well.
Tuner and application in action
Other brands also offer such tuners. Medion Akoya offers one, although I have not tested it. In the case of Augustus, the advantage is a set of adapters for various antennas - the simplest one did not catch the signal when the tuner was on the balcony, the slightly larger one with a magnet at the base had no problems when the antenna was placed on the balustrade. Thanks to the adapters, the tuner can also be connected to larger antennas.
As for the WiFi Direct connection, the application does not allow you to switch the tuner WiFi radio to the client mode and connect it to the existing network - so using the tuner will prevent the use of WiFi on the target device.
▸August DVB-T405 in action
▸Fragment of the tuner recording
Comment article