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Comment by vytautask | Hacker News Reader

Just buy an ultrabook/some laptop with good screen, good network card and long-lasting battery. If heat is the problem for you, I would suggest some aluminum-encased laptop that would disperse heat more easily. IMHO, probably Google chromebook (https://www.google.com/chromebook/) is the kind of device you are looking for...

Also what you need is a remote desktop app. There are quite a few nowadays (from "Remote Desktop" in Windows, to TeamViewer, VNC or etc.). A quite good list is in wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_remote_desktop_s... .

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Yes. I know about those. I am a software developer.

Buying an ultrabook/laptop just for continence seem a bit overkill to me. Those are not exactly cheap. But that is not the point. The point is how much untapped potential is there in existing systems. I think we should be trying to extract as much value from the existing set up, before buying more redundant stuff. We already have wireless keyboards and mouse. We just need an Lcd with bundled transmitter/reciever with enough bandwidth. Making It is quite trivial compared to the convenience it will provide. It might even be able to support multiple users. Put one desktop in your basement, and the whole family can use these dumb wireless terminals.

"Bundled with transmitter/receiver" is the tricky part. How would you configure such device? How it would know where and how to convert/send/receive signal? To solve those basic problems you'll need some computational power. There we arrive at thin clients (for example like those: http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/cloud-client-computing?stp...). Some of them do have wireless connectivity...

In the same way wireless keyboards and mouses work. You use a receiver/transmitter pair. It does not require any computational power. A receiver can be tuned to a particular transmitter. We might have to encrypt the display transmission. But it am sure it can be done using dedicated hardware.

Sounds like you just want a wireless display adapter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiDi

Yes. That is what I am talking about. It seems like there are already cheap devices that can do wireless HDMI streaming [1].

[1] http://www.amazon.in/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps...

You're not going to like the latency of using Airplay or similar over wifi, unless you're doing something non-interactive (like watching a movie).

Is that so? I am not sure why there would be a noticeable latency. Wireless keyboards and mouse works fine from a distance. Besides, I am not suggesting using wifi for this, but a direct radio link.

"Is that so?"

Yes.

"I am not sure why there would be a noticeable latency."

Even if you don't understand it, the latency will still affect you.

"Wireless keyboards and mouse works fine from a distance."

Yes, they do. That's irrelevant. They don't use wi-fi, and they transmit significantly less data than used in a video signal.

"Besides, I am not suggesting using wifi for this, but a direct radio link."

You are suggesting using wifi. Your comment, to which I responded, included a link to an HDMI stick which streams video over wifi.

I'm suggesting that the device you linked (along with every other HDMI/wi-fi stick) will not serve your purpose, due to latency.

Feel free to buy it and report back your results if they differ :)

>I'm suggesting that the device you linked (along with every other HDMI/wi-fi stick) will not serve your purpose..

Cool. Was not suggesting to use WiFi, Sorry for the misunderstanding. Also, I think you might be confusing latency with throughput.

"I think you might be confusing latency with throughput"

No, I'm not.

The problem with streaming video over wifi (e.g. Airplay) is latency, not throughput. That's why watching videos is fine (you don't care if there's a lag, as long as audio is travelling along the same path), but interactive stuff (like normal work) feels off.

Ok. I thought so because you mentioned wireless keyboards transmit less data than a video signal..

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