Wireless Testing:

Testing the wireless portion of the Gauntlet Node included connecting to the drive using the following devices:

» ASUS Transformer TF101 tablet running Android 4.0
» Samsung Galaxy S3 running Android 4.1
» Dell XPS 12 Ultrabook running Windows 8 Pro

The Android and IOS devices will use the app available in their app stores. While the Dell XPS 12 Ultrabook will use the web browser to connect.

After connecting to the Gauntlet Node WIFI hotspot, the app will connect to the Node and provide a list of the files on the drive. It does not sort the files into easy to search containers, rather it relies on the file structure of the hard drive. The picture on the left shows the files as they reside on the Node. While the picture on the right shows the file structure of the tablet. One thing that was quickly noticed is the lack of access to the local Micro SD card on the tablet. While we recognize that not all devices have a Micro SD slot, for those that do it should recognize it and allow access to it.



Pressing the "Control" menu button at the bottom of the screen provides a slight change to the file listing. Check boxes appear, which allow the user to select files or folders to upload to the Gauntlet Node, rename the files, or delete them.



On the main screen, another menu option is "More", pressing that provides a few sub-menu options, one of which is "Settings". Here is where you can begin to configure a few features of the Gauntlet Node.



The "Wi-Fi Networks" option allows the selection of a WiFi network to connect the Gauntlet Node to. This is a nice feature to have so you can continue to browse the network while accessing the Node. One small problem however, there is no way to select a network when the SSID is not broadcasting.



The "Security" menu allows a password to be configured to access the Gauntlet Node. Pretty standard password options for a WiFi device; WEPAUTO, WPA Personal, and WPA2 Personal.



When entering a WEP key, you can enter up to four keys at once, and select which one is the default (active) key.



While testing, I was able to go about 15 feet from the Node before I started noticing connectivity issues. While it's not a huge range, 15 feet should be plenty when sharing data in a car or room. On a supported file type, it would stream flawlessly up until that point, at which time it would start stuttering and quickly lose connection. In addition, I was able to stream video to three devices at a time, unfortunately that was all the devices I had handy in order to stream video to.

After several uses in a variety of configurations, I found that the battery typically lasted about five hours before it needed to be recharged. While longer would obviously be welcomed, that isn't a bad figure considering it is keeping a hard drive spinning. Using a SSD would most definitely improve battery life.