Review: Hauppauge myTV2go

The myTV2go is a  wireless device from Hauppauge which enables you to watch telly on the move using your iPad, iPhone, Mac, or Windows PC.

I carried out the the test in a simple way by downloading the free app to the iPad. This is powered by Fuugo which will be familiar if you have ever played with Elgato’s Tvizen device which uses very similar software.

In the box you get a separate device with aerial and WiFi. It is about the size of 3 matchboxes and only has an extending aerial – no connection for an external aerial is supplied or possible.

It’s an easy set up to start with in that you insert the battery and charge it up using the supplied cable plugged into your PC or USB charger.

Then you open the app on your iPad and turn on the aerial device. You go into settings and connect to the aerial and then return to the app. You need to follow the very simple set up instructions on screen. If you are travelling about remember to set up the country you are in. This device is designed to show you the local channels to where you are.

The first test on this – on a trip to Germany – worked well but the subsequent test hit a snag when it declared that no channels could be found. So I moved upstairs with the aerial and still nothing. So I tried a different location and a reset. At least with this being a wireless device you do not have to locate the aerial near the PC so I could experiment with finding the best location.

One neat feature is that once you have connected to the myTV2go’s own WiFi you can then use a setting to tell the device to connect to your own home network and then use your home network to connect to the device – so you still have internet access from the iPad. Now on my fourth test I did manage to connect to the home WiFi network  but still it refused to find any channels.

So I decided to give it another go and after a reset, it found a few channels. About 7 channels and 6 radio stations. It immediately started playing one channel. I tapped the screen and up came the options of channel, controls and menu. I selected channels and a panel appears at the bottom of the screen and you can scroll between the channels and tap to select one.

It has an info panel that comes up to show you what you are watching. You can select next if you want to see what is coming up next

If you select control you can pause, rewind and skip forward live TV.

At the top of the screen there is a menu button and if selected you have the choice to see recording, settings, Program guide and the help panel.

The Program guide when up if you click on a program you are interested in the detail panel comes up and you can mark it as a favourite or select it for recording. Just tap record and that is all you have to do. If you want to stop the recording just bring up the program guide again and select stop.

Once you have a recording then just click menu and select recordings and click on the one you want to see.

Settings is pretty straight forward with

Choice of:-

Country

Language guide

Channels

Program guide

About

Home Wi-Fi set up

Receiver set up

The operation is pretty simple but the biggest problem I found was getting a decent TV signal. On my home TV I get about 72 channels and on this just 7. The signal was weak and the Hauppauge MyTV2Go did tell me this but moving the device about and trying to balance it on the radiator and the usual tricks failed to get any success.

So I think the limiting factor for this is the strength of signal that you can get. I am close to a major road in fairness which may make it more difficult for the signal but even at a different property there was still a problem with the signals.

So I would recommend that they consider the strength of the signal and perhaps allow the option of an external antenna. The concept is good but the delivery is limited at this stage at least in the UK – although I have to say it worked very well in Germany on a work trip.